Heart of the Sword
by Zapenstap
Summary: Heero's obsessed with Relena to the point where love becomes pain, but seeing only dismissive indifference, Relena lets herself be courted by Damion, Prince of Taravren, who's actually a great guy. When Heero loses control, the situation explodes.
1. Chapter 1

This fic takes place after Endless Waltz, but ignores the fact that the gundams were detonated. In this fic, fighting for peace and in defense is highly supported and the gundam pilots are international heroes but more or less retired. This first part is a set-up for all the craziness (action, drama, angst, etc) that will take place in this romance so pay close attention!   


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Heart of the Sword   
Chapter One 

by zapenstap 

  
  
  


The prairie lands of Northern Cinq stretched ceaselessly into the west. Fields of wheat and barley choked the land, long stalks like golden grass climbing up the legs of workers in the field. 

Heero sat on a protruding boulder, worn smooth over the years, ignoring wheat and workers both. He sat facing Southeast, staring into an empty and pitiless sky. It was early morning, and cool yet, but by noon the heat would grow, and likely as not, he would still be sitting on this same rock, staring into nothing, thinking little of the present, not of the past, and wearily circling the future. Or perhaps he would leave. 

He pulled at the grains on a stick of wheat, ripping them from the stem and letting them sprinkle onto the surface of the rock and around his shoes. He wasn't terribly interested in the chaff he held, but it occupied his hands, and somewhat his mind. 

Deathscythe was in the field behind him, tromping about like an enormous black stain in a field of gold. But its scythe blazed boldly forth, glaring green even in the morning sunlight as it thrashed the heads from the wheat stocks. Heero supposed that was what scythes were for. Strange that such a practical tool could be turned into a merciless weapon. But Duo didn't look at it that way. Actually, neither did Heero, but he entertained the thought in his distraction. It might be something a civilian would say. Perhaps Relena would say it. 

His throat was parched. He wished he had something to drink. Something strong. 

He heard the Deathscythe approach from behind before it got close. One would have to be a blind rabbit not to notice a gundam tromping through the field, even a stealth model. He was glad that its shadow did fall across him and obstruct the sunlight. He wanted to drink it in before it became too hot. He didn't turn when the cockpit lowered and Duo leaped out on a suspended cable either. 

"Heero! What are staring at, man?" Duo didn't bother waiting for an answer Heero wouldn't give, but plopped down beside him and began rambling about the wheat and the Deathscythe. He always talked about the Deathscythe. Heero listened, but not attentively. In the middle of Duo's stream of self praise, Heero stood, still staring Southeast. 

Duo crossed his legs and put his hands on his ankles. "What the hell, Heero? Why don't you just go talk to her?" 

"What are you talking about?" Heero said blankly, not looking at him. 

Duo sighed with more noise than necessary and laid back on the rock, staring up into the sky. "Nothing, I guess. Are you keeping up with Preventor stuff?" 

"Some," Heero replied. "They seem to have it under control." 

"Yeah, well, if anything happens, you know who they're going to call first." He grinned. "Makes you feel good, doesn't it, to be in such high demand?" 

Heero said nothing for several seconds. "I'm going to the New Port City to speak with..." 

"Relena?" 

"Sally and Wufei," Heero finished curtly. Duo's expression fell. "You can stay here and thrash wheat." 

Duo tucked his hands behind his head, closed his eyes and smiled knowingly. "Is that your way of an invite? Reverse psychology? Too proud to ask me to come along? I don't have any reason to go to New Port City, Heero." 

Heero looked back then, but without much expression. He turned away and stepped off the boulder, landing solidly on the ground. He didn't want to have to deal with this. "There's trouble in what used to be the Taravren Kingdom, small and to the east. Rumors mostly, but there could be a rebellion brewing." 

Duo snorted. "You _are_ keeping up with Preventor intel." He rolled his eyes and talked out loud to himself like he always did. "Why does that surprise me? So, who's the leader of Taravren?" 

"Jacob Ravineere was King before the nations were dissolved, but he's now the President, and still the main power." 

"Yeah?" Duo commented, waving a hand. He still hadn't moved. "Is he also the rumored leader of this rumored rebellion?" 

"His record is clean so far," Heero said deeply, throwing his coat over his shoulder. "But his son Damion is coming to Cinq as an ambassador to hold counsel with the Peacekeeping Officials and speak with the Preventors at the Parliament Council this afternoon." 

Duo chuckled. "Which means he'll talk to Relena and you can watch both of them. Way to kill two birds with one stone." 

Heero stiffened. His voice was cold. "There's nothing between Relena and me." He was emptiness itself. 

Duo laughed again. "Right. Hilde and I are just friends. That's why she writes me love letters when I come to Earth to hang out with _you _and the others. Come on, Heero, you're not fooling me, but if you want things to progress you better do something, because I can guarantee it that Relena won't wait around for you forever. Rumor has it she's already starting to think you really don't care." Duo turned his head to look at him. "_Do_ you care?" 

Heero locked eyes with Duo in some belligerence. "Relena can do whatever she wants." 

They stared at one another for awhile and then Duo sat up and swung off the rock. "I guess she can," he muttered and Heero could tell that Duo was frustrated with him. "I'll get Deathsycthe to a transport." 

"You won't need your Gundam." 

Duo merely looked at him. "Hey, I just don't like leaving it lying around. You wouldn't leave Wing Zero either. I know you have it stashed around here somewhere. You're just trying to order me around." He grinned and waved nonchalantly, "I'll meet you at the airport at 3:00." 

He whistled as he walked away, long braid swinging. Heero watched him walk to the Deathscythe and then turned to the southeast again, toward New Port City and Cinq's capital. His own thoughts confused and distracted him, so he ignored them and began walking to where he had left the Wing Zero. 

***** 

Relena set down her hairbrush and stood in one fluid motion. She turned to look in the full-length mirror, examining the pale blue suit with the Cinq Kingdom scrollings on the collar and shoulders and down the front on one side. She wore slacks and a trim coat today instead of a skirt. She also left her hair down because she had shortened a few weeks ago for the summer and could afford to look professional without having to tie it away from her face. Even so, she looked youthful, too youthful for her job, but as long as people listened to her, she supposed it mattered little. And after the Mariemaia incident last winter, people were asking a lot of questions. They wanted reassurance, and she could not give that and look her age at the same time. 

Her morning tea had already begun to cool, barely warm by her estimation, but she lifted it from her desk and drank it anyway, for the caffeine if for nothing else. Then she gathered her clipboard and headed out of her room. It was sad that she had a desk in her room as well as a personal office just down one floor, but work needed to be done all the time, and there was no one else to do it. 

She smiled as she stepped out her room and bathed her face in the sunlight that poured in through the many windows running down the hallway. She bypassed the elevator and took the stairs down to her office. Terrese, her shared secretary (she worked for several representatives) greeted her with a mischevious smile and waved her over. They were a mismatched pair, but Terrese, being young herself, had taken Relena into close confidence as a friend over the past few months. 

"You have a busy day today," Terrese said with a knowing look and a twinkle in her eye. She glanced around for anyone that might be listening (they were alone) and hid her mouth behind her hand as she spoke low for Relena's ear only. "Boys by the dozen are going to be tramping through here today, and a good number of them are about our age." 

"Oh, Terrese," Relena said, but more with fondness than exasperation. 

Terrese grinned wickedly and leaned back. "I know you care, even if you don't let on." Relena opened her mouth, but Terrese forestalled her, pointing her pencil stiffly in Relena's face like a weapon. "And _don't _give me that tired excuse about being too busy for boys. Everytime that Gundam Pilot comes around you fall out of chair to try and accomodate him." Relena sputtered an indignant protest, but Terrese's gleaming eyes and flashing smile held the floor. "Hey, I don't blame you, girl. He is beautiful and built and I know you have some sort of bizzarre past connection, but just do me a favor and don't limit your options. Damion Ravineere is paying your little council a visit today and I have it on high authority that he's a hottie, not to mention wealthy and popular. Can't say that for your Heero, can ya?" 

"Terrese," Relena sighed. "Is this harrassment really necessary?" 

"Yes it is," Terrese said firmly. "They're already calling you the Princess of Peace. You don't want to add Virgin Queen to that charming title." 

"Terrese, it would look much worse if they called me other names. I have to be more careful about my reputation now than I've ever been." 

"Whatever," the dark-haired girl said dismissively. "All I'm saying is that you should keep your options open." 

Relena tried to think of something to respond with but instead they both ended up laughing helplessly. 

When her mirth subsided, Terrese opened her drawer and handed Relena a clipboard. "Here's all the people that want to talk to you," she said. "I put frowny faces next to the ones you probably don't need to bother with, but you should definitely set up appointments with the ones I've got starred." 

Relena scanned the list and handed it back to Terrese. "That's what you're here for, my dear assistant," Relena said. "To set up all my appointments. I trust your impecable judgement." 

"Well thank you, Miss Vice Foreign Minister Darilan," Terrese replied with mock severity. She winked and smiled. "I'll get right on it. I'm sure you have tons of other things to do." 

"Always," Relena said with a smile and accompanying sigh. "Don't let anybody in my office until noon except for those people on the list I gave you." 

"Uh-huh," Terrese said. "All your friends and family." 

"Preventors," Relena said with a tsk. 

"It's a family business," she said dismissively. "Plus Heero, whom you'd like to be family." 

"Terrese!" Relena screeched fiercely. 

"Okay okay," Terrese laughed, waving her away. "Go work. I've got you covered." 

Shaking her head, Relena slipped into her office and sat down in her chair, already feeling weary before the day had begun. But, she had to admit, she liked it, and her desk was swamped with important papers. She hoped to get through at least some of them before the lunch council gathering that required her attendence, her and a hundred other dignitaries. 

By eleven oclock her patience had worn thin, her caffeine kick had dissolved and the stack of papers didn't seem to be diminishing. She guessed that only meant she was sure to be employed for some time to come, but it was discouraging. 

Terrese tapped on her door. "Miss Darilan?" she said politely, poking her head in. 

Relena looked up. "Yes, Terrese?" 

Terrese made a face, mouthed something obscene and then said in that polite tone, "Heero Yuy and Duo Maxwell are here to see you." Then she winked. 

Relena gestured that they be let in and Terrese grinned and ducked her head out. Relena heard Terrese's murmured welcome before Heero strolled in with Duo following just behind. Duo's gaze wandered lazily around the room, even up to the ceiling, but Heero's eyes focused on her. They always did. 

Relena rose from her seat and smiled. "Heero, Duo, it's good to see you. I haven't seen either of you in some time." 

"I've been in space," Duo said with an air of worldly charm. He clapped Heero on the shoulder and grinned. "But Heero's been around." Heero just looked at him, not menacingly, but not friendly either. Relena recognized all his looks and thought little of it. He was beautiful, and welcoming when he tried, and always kind, but he had difficulty dealing with people, and especially with people he was close to, perhaps because he was afraid of closeness. That made her heart ache, but she could never pity Heero Yuy; he didn't need it, didn't want it, and she didn't feel it for him. Besides, she had difficulty with closeness too and did not handle it half so well. 

There was a moment of awkward silence. There always was. When Heero came, it was always on business; Relena had come to expect that. They did not have idle conversations, though sometimes words passed silently between them. When they were alone they said nothing, sitting or standing together in comfortable quiet, drinking it in the other's presence alone. When they did speak it was usually about the world. She had long since given up trying to convince Heero how much he meant to her personally. He simply did not believe it. And he never did know how to respond. 

So now they simply stood and looked at one another. 

"I'm going to go," Duo said dubiously after a minute. "I need to talk to...Wufei. I'll talk to you guys later." And he slipped out of the room. 

Relena faced Heero from behind her desk, standing, hands clasped in front of her. She was beginning to grow comfortable with the pool of emotion that rose in her gut when he was around, but it had begun to change of late. The longing to be closer to him grew every time she saw him now, and recently she found herself longing to touch him, any part of him, but even that innocent desire made her feel dirty and she blushed thinking about it. It was human contact she desired, not sexual satisfaction, and she wanted it more for him than she did for her, but as there was nothing real between them, the idea embarrassed her. 

"I'm here to investigate rumors of rebellion in Taravren," Heero said finally, and his gaze slipped off her face the moment he spoke. 

"I know," she said quietly. "Sally said something about it the other day." 

Heero nodded. "I just wanted to know you were all right." 

"I'm fine," she whispered, and inwardly begged for him to say more. Time stretched. 

He shrugged. "Then I guess I'll be going." He turned and walked out before she could say anything to forestall him. 

Standing stupidly behind her desk, staring at the door, she could think of nothing at all. Her thoughts were empty. She realized there was a smile on her face that had appeared only when he turned to go, as if recalling some lost memory. 

It was then that she realized he had stopped using her name to address her. Come to think of it, he hadn't said her name to her face since last Christmas and the Mariemaia incident. As the door closed, she bit her lip and sat down again, hands still in her lap. For some reason, she suddenly felt like crying, and there was a dull ache in her chest. She sat like that for some time. 

The clock struck twelve. She was late for the council. She was never late. 

"I need to get over Heero," she muttered fiercely to herself. 

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	2. Chapter 2

The Heart of the Sword 

Chapter 2   


by Zapenstap 

  
  


"Master Damion," Manny began as Damion heeled his horse to the hilltop and lifted the binoculars to his eyes. "We should ride back soon. Your jet is scheduled to depart by ten thirty to arrive in New Port City by Council by noon." 

Looking through the binoculars, Damion could clearly make out the old military base on the dockside of the harbor. Ships large and small moved in and out of port, or milled in the bay waiting their turn, but if he wasn't mistaken some of those shipments were being taken around the back of the base and smuggled inside in secret. Old Farnworth was right. Something was brewing down there. 

Damion clicked his tongue and tugged lightly on the reigns of his thoroughbred stallion until the horse moved back beside Manny and his mount. "All right, Manny, I've seen enough. We are now equipped to address the council." 

Manny's lopsided grin was almost roguish. He was a boxer and Damion's servant and bodyguard, but it looked silly on him. "My Lord, I don't know what you mean by 'we.' Servants aren't allowed to a council of dignitaries." 

"That's because they clutter up the room," Damion said in his most proud and joking tone. Manny's brown eyes shone in anticipation. "But we might find a way to smuggle you in as a lord and friend of mine." 

Manny grinned. "In that case, my Lord Prince, may I have permission to address you by your first name in New Port City?" 

Damion laughed and heeled his stallion into a fast trot. Manny followed. "You always have anywhere." 

"Begging your pardon, Prince Damion, but that wouldn't be a credit to you in most company, and I don't mind." 

They had had this conversation before. Damion let it drop and urged his horse into a gallop, lying low across his neck to pick up their speed. Manny was not the horseman Damion was--he hadn't been bred to it as his servant--but he kept pace. 

They raced down the hills and up the paved pathways to the back entrance of the capital city of Taravren, where they slowed to an elegant light trot. Damion was not wearing his regimentals, but people in the street recognized him and some of them waved or called out. He did not wave or call back. That would have embarrassed them, but he let himself smile now and again, especially if his fans were girls. 

"You'll break hearts someday, my Lord," Manny said with a grin, raking his hand through sandy blonde hair.. 

"So my dear mother keeps telling me," Damion commented. "But there are only so many I can choose from, and most of those meetings are arranged." 

"Well, I'm sure there'll be more than a few girls at the Council to practice with. Relena Peacecraft will certainly be in attendance and she's eligible as the Cinq princess, not to mention former Queen of the World. I distinctly remember her catching your eye a few years ago." 

"On a _video screen_," Damion agreed loosely, "and I saw her at Romafeller a few times after, but we've never actually met." 

"Well, my Lord, you're eighteen now and a gentleman coming into your inheritance. Now's the time for an introduction." 

"Aren't you just full of advice today," Damion replied, but he smiled broadly. 

The black spiral gates to the old palace were opened wide for them before them arrived and Damion trotted his horse through with little thought of it. They rode through with the clatter of horse's hooves on cobblestone and circled around the fountains and enormous garden beds to the stables on the right side of the formal structure. Damion dismounted easily, landing lightly on both feet, removed his riding gloves, and handed both the gloves and the reigns of his horse to two of three grooms who were ready and waiting before he could call. He nodded to them, receiving smiles of appreciation, as Manny dismounted and handed his own horse over as well. 

Manny took his riding coat and held open the door for him as they entered the palace from the side entrance. One foot in the door and Damion was immediately accosted by servants with warm wet towels with which to wash his hands and face. Wine was poured for him from a cooled flask, and also for Manny at Damion's insistence. Manny handed over Damion's and his own riding coat to another servant and they were left alone for about four strides as they made for the stairs and Damion's quarters. 

"My Lord Damion," a woman's voice murmured from beside the staircase. 

Damion smiled and bowed to Clara Veron, the daughter and only child of Duke Veron, but he was not feeling it. Multiple layers of pale red silk and chiffon sheathed her slim form in elegance. It was a vibrant color, bringing out the brown in her eyes and dark hair, both shining in the yellow light of the foyer. She curtseyed, ducking her head, and rose straight and graceful. 

"Good morning, Miss Clara," he said. "Can I help my Lady with anything?" 

"I merely wanted to wish you well on your trip, Prince" she said, clasping her hands before her. The loose, wispy sleeves of her dress concealed the backs of her hands, but not her fingers. She wore only one ring, the signet ring of her family, amethyst and diamond on a gold band around the middle finger of her right hand. Her gown was girdled in gold as well, and a necklace of amethyst circled her slender throat. When she married, she would be a duchess, but he suspected she wanted to be a princess too. "But I do not want to keep you. I am sure you have preparations yet to make. My Lord," she said in way of departure, and curtseyed again, slightly this time, and swept past him. 

"She is a beautiful woman," Manny said when she was out of earshot. "Like a rose." 

"A rose with many thorns," Damion muttered in return, but he wasn't sure Manny heard him. 

In his rooms, Damion removed his riding clothes and donned his formal wear. His coat was long, reaching to his knees, and pale blue like the sky. Silver and gold scrolling worked its way up the sleeves and shoulders and the lapels in front were white silk. He stood in front of a full length mirror with his arms at his sides as Manny adjusted the many cumbersome folds and clasps that completed the princely picture. He stared into his own face, smoothing his expression, contemplating gray eyes and brown hair. He had been told his eyes were like the morning, full of light and chill winter, and that he was good looking in general, but he tried not to think too much about it for fear of growing more prideful than was absolutely necessary. As a final touch, Manny placed his silver coronet on his head, pinning it tight to his hair. Damion always thought the thing looked strange, especially on a man, but it was a symbol, and he would be addressing a good number of important people as a Prince, even if he was a prince who would never be King. It was likely he was overdressed, but first impressions were important and he was young. A prince was not expected to meet others as an equal and make friends, but to impress others and form allies, better if they were subordinate ones, but he didn't think much of that either. 

"All right," Damion said at last to Manny. "Your turn." 

Manny took a step back. "I don't think so, sir. I appreciate the offer, but seeing you now, though I have seen it many times, I do not think I could carry off lordship, begging your pardon, Master." 

Damion suppressed a sigh and nodded. "All right, Manny. If you insist. We will keep our friendship strictly professional in public." 

"Thanks, Damion," Manny said quietly, using his first name. "It's a relief. I mean, I've grown up with you, and we've always been best friends, but I'll always think of you as my master because that's what you are. It was different a few years ago when we were still kids and everything, but you're an adult now and growing into your proper role and it's just not the same pretending anymore. You understand?" 

"I understand," Damion said simply, but with regret. It seemed things were becoming more complicated the older he got. "But you do know I'll never actually be a king, right? Now that our nation technically doesn't exist due to Romafeller's decree, I shall be a prince forever." 

"I know, and that's a relief too, if you'll forgive me, Damion. I always dreaded the day of your coronation when I would probably be removed from your service, but it doesn't change _everything_." 

Damion nodded. "We'd better be going," he said at last, and Manny held open the door for him. 

***** 

Relena was admitted to the council hall with a flush faced and racing heartbeat. She was late, by a few minutes, but everyone else was already seated. Luckily, the council had not officially started and most people were still chatting amiably. Members of the Romafeller Foundation mixed with government officials and retired military specialist. It was a buffet of dignitaries, and though the dress varied, it was all formal. Relena walked down the front aisle to her seat, a dignified spot for the Vice Foreign Minister and ex-Queen of the World. Dorothy Catalonia glanced at her from the end of the row and smiled in that shrewd manner peculiar to her upbringing. Relena was never really certain whether Dorothy actually liked her, merely respected her, or faked both. She wasn't sure Dorothy did either, but she smiled warmly in return. It never hurt to be kind. Besides, she had to sit next to Dorothy, so she might as well establish civility from the get-go. 

"You are late, Miss Relena," Dorothy said in tones that might have been sweet if not for the underlying bite. 

Relena did not reply, but set her clipboard on the desk in front of her and sat with a straight back in her seat. 

Dorothy folded her arms as the presiding Chairman of today's council walked to the center of the room and stood behind the podium. He coughed and raised his hand for attention. 

The door Relena had just entered opened and a young man arrayed in royal garments walked into the room. Heads turned away from the Chairman and toward the newcomer, surprise and admiration rippling through the room in quiet mutters. Relena stared for several seconds, evaluating who she supposed was Prince Damion Ravineere of Taravren. Terese's account of him had been right. He was attractive, well built, and possessed a commanding presence. His coat alone was probably worth a fortune and the coronet of silver resting on his forehead flashed like a star. Every movement from the shift of his eyes to the way he moved his hands indicated aristocratic upbringing. 

"Something caught your eye, Miss Relena?" Dorothy murmured on her left. 

"Do you know him, Dorothy?" Relena asked. 

"We've met before. A prince is one rank above a duke, but my grandfather and his father often spoke. Like most royal families, his did not like the growing power in the Romafeller Foundation and their talks were often heated. I don't really remember. I was twelve at the time, and Damion was just a princeling. He's grown quite attractive," she added, "but I believe he's looking at _you_." 

Dorothy turned her head away with a suggestive smile, but Relena jumped. He _was_ looking in her direction, but at her? She looked at him directly and he smiled. It lit up his face. Quite unconscious of it, she smiled back. Suddenly, he bowed before the assembly and asked a few words of pardon for being late. An usher at the door directed him to the front row, coincidentally enough, to the seat beside Relena. 

He sat beside her without looking at her directly, but as soon as the Chairman began to speak and there was some other noise in the room, he turned his attention to her. "Relena Darilan, I presume?" he questioned. "I am Damion Ravineere of Taravren. It's a pleasure to finally meet you." 

"Likewise," Relena returned. "I heard you were coming today." 

He nodded and some of the formality seemed to slip now that introductions were over. "My father thought it was time I took some active interest in international affairs. He is occupied tracking rumors of rebellion in Taravren and sending me seemed like a splendid idea, both as a delegate and a messenger." 

Relena would have made a polite reply, but she was suddenly called upon to release an update of affair in space. Smiling an apology to Damion, she rose and made her report, urging as always that more relations between the community of earth and the community of space were always needed. "We must not segregate ourselves into two societies," she said. "That is what has contributed to problems in the past. It is imperative that everyone work to love and understand space, and not depend on me alone. If I am truly a representative, than I must truly represent how the people of earth feel about the colonies." She did not speak long on the Terra Formation Project, as that would have been time consuming and not an issue for this particular council, but she did mention the attitude and situation of space and was at length applauded for her efforts and allowed to sit down again. 

Damion did not speak to her again throughout the rest of the council. Relena was busy taking notes on what various delegates had to say on the situation of the world anyway, but she noticed that he occasionally watched her with an air of curiosity. 

Finally, the Chairman announced Damion's presence and he rose to speak even as Relena had. His speech was fluid and sure, with an air of training, she thought, because it was so flawless. His words were not heart-winning, but they were engaging, organized and easily comprehended. Taravren had been a small country. There were rumors of disquiet but they were not the fault of the royal family or the governing bodies. Taravren's current government offered its cooperation to the peace keeping forces of the Earth's United Nation as investigations into the matter were being undertaken. Taravren thanked the council for their hard work, care and attention. He was applauded as he sat down. 

Relena looked up and was surprised to see Heero on the balcony. As Damion finished, Heero turned and left. 

Relena gaze dropped and she smiled just as Damion turned to look at her. He opened his mouth but was interrupted as the Chairman resumed the platform, but he held Relena's gaze with a gleam in his eye. 

At half-past four the council was adjourned and everybody had more work to do. As council members rose from their seats and began to mill about, Relena and Damion once more turned to one another. 

"And what will you do now, Lord Damion?" Relena asked politely. 

"Well, I have to petition the services of various groups individually," he replied, and then looked directly into her face. "And I would like to have dinner with you, if that is not too forward and you have no prior engagement." 

She started. Oh, right, he must be petitioning her. Her gaze wondered to the balcony where Heero had been, but he was no longer there. "I have no private engagements," she said, nothing that couldn't wait anyway. "What would you like to discuss?" 

He laughed and leaned back in his chair, almost all manner of formality gone. "Do you always work this hard? I'm asking you on a date, Miss Darilan, not a business meeting. I don't think you can really help me much in matters of a rebellion. I'll go to the Preventors for that." 

Relena blushed to her hairline. Dinner with Damion? Terese's voice in her head demanded she accept. And her own voice seconded it. It was time. "In that case I would love to," she said with a little laugh. "And yes, I do always work this hard." 

He nodded, and immediately named a restaurant and a time. "It's nice," he said, "but not this formal. Can I pick you up or would you rather meet me?" 

"Either," she said, "but it might be easier if I can just meet you." 

He nodded, stood and bowed to her. "Then I'll be waiting at 7:00, Miss Relena." And he left. 

Suddenly she realized everyone that still remained in the room had been watching the entire seen. She rose a little awkwardly, embarrassed, and collected her things. Damion was immediately accosted by everyone who knew anything about him, and also by people he apparently did know. But they had had to wait until he was done with her. And for the first time in a long time, Relena was able to slip out of a council room unnoticed. 

Dorothy met her in the hall. 

"Miss Relena and Prince Damion," she cooed. "It is hard to say who outranks who." 

"He outranks me," she replied, as _if_ she cared. "I am a Darilan now, not a Peacecraft." 

"But you were once Queen of the World," Dorothy replied, "and Chief Representative of the Romafeller Foundation." 

"What do you want, Dorothy?" Relena asked flat out, not meanly, but with focus. It was easier that way. 

"Nothing. I think it's wonderful, but how will Heero feel about it?" she asked in those slow, over contemplative tones. 

Relena's stomach fluttered and she looked down, but then she steeled herself. "Heero has not made any move on me, Dorothy. It's about time I stop wasting my time waiting for him. He's obviously not interested." 

"Wasting your time?" Dorothy repeated, smiling as Relena stalked past her, a little angry at herself for being so harsh, but feeling she meant what she said. Even so, Dorothy's expression had been way too conniving for comfort, and she ought to have taken more caution. 

***** 

Away from the city, Heero climbed the green slopes to where a solitary tree cast patches of shade over the grassy turf. He sat down and folded his arms over his knees, staring toward the Cinq Palace rising from the center of New Port City. 

Relena. Relena. Relena. 

His brain was on fire. 

He had gone to the council to observe Damion Ravineere, but instead he had stared at her for three and a half hours, transfixed in one place. She had made him forget why he had come, and that had never happened before. Why why why? He had been fine until he saw her. 

He felt sick to his stomach, like he was poisoned, and he was hot and sweating and he couldn't concentrate. 

"I'm a soldier," he exhaled hoarsely, and felt something like tears in his eyes. But they were not tears. It was a strange sickness. He was dizzy and sick with desire, which made him feel more sick still. He was not comfortable with this, whatever it was called. Carnal lust or love or obsession, he didn't know. He did not understand any of it, and it was doing things to his mind and body. He understood those things in relation to being human and being a man, but he did not know them personally or how to deal with them and did not want to. 

He had never been so distracted in his life. 

He didn't know if he wanted to kill her or sleep with her. 

Oh God. Sleep with her? His brain was on fire. He was sick. He gulped in air and laid back on the grass. Perhaps ordinary sleep or better yet, a good fight would clear his head. There was the danger of dreams in sleep. Perhaps he could sit in the Wing Zero and _imagine_ a fight until the Zero System could sort this out for him. But maybe that would be fruitless. Relena was not the enemy. He just wanted to possess her. 

He was sick. He needed an antidote, but he didn't know what to take, or if there was even a cure. 

"Heero!" 

He turned his head to see Duo climbing the hill and groaned inwardly. He wanted to be alone. 

"Hey," Duo said, dusting off his knees. "This is a nice little place. What are you doing here?" 

"Nothing," Heero replied. He wanted to say 'leave me alone,' but had no desire to speak much at all, and Duo likely wouldn't heed the request anyway. 

"Did you get a load of that Damion guy?" Duo asked. "I saw him after the Council. Man! I wish I was half that rich and good looking. I mean, I'm not complaining, but that guy seems to have everything. They even say he's nice." He grinned. "Hey, did you hear that he asked Relena out to dinner? Everybody was talk..." 

Heero sat bold right-up and stood to his feet before any rational thoughts could pass through his head. All he saw were images. 

"Ho, Heero. Calm down," Duo said, pushing down on the air with both hands in a calming gesture. "They're not getting _married_ or anything. I thought you said there was nothing between the two of you?" 

Heero's head swam. He couldn't think straight. "I..." he stuttered, walked past a shocked-faced Duo and ran down the hill. 

"Heero!" Duo shouted after him "What the hell, man? What are you going to do? Heero!" 

He was back in New Port City and the Palace before he knew it. The guards at the gates ignored him. They were used to all the Gundam Pilots running in and out of Cinq all the time. 

"Heero Yuy," a familiar voice called from behind him in the foyer. Dorothy Catalonia. He turned and knew he looked dangerous. Dorothy was undaunted. "Did you hear about Miss Relena and Prince Damion Ravineere?" she murmured, and her eyes glittered. 

"Yes," he said calmly from some dead place, but there was acid eating his heart. "What do you know about it?" 

Dorothy shrugged. She was still dressed in her formal clothing, a black suit today. "I asked her about it right after council. I told her she might want to consider what you might think." 

Heero felt as if the world was poised on the edge of a sword. Everything seemed to zero-in on Dorothy's words and everything else was shrunken, black and dead. 

"She said she should stop wasting her time on you," Dorothy finished with a bite in her tone, but all he could see were her lips moving. 

wasting her time on you. 

wasting her time. 

on you. 

you. 

"Heero?" Dorothy asked. 

He shook his head and turned away. "I'm fine," he said hoarsely. 

But his world had dropped out from under him. Everything had changed. Everything. And he was suddenly desperate again, desperate as he had not been since battles were the only thing that he considered his life. And she had changed that. 

She had believed him. 

But she had wasted her time. 

He wanted to kill somebody. And it was Damion's face that came to mind. 

He was feverishly sick. 

* * *

email me please!!! 

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	3. Chapter 3

  
The Heart of the Sword   
Chapter 3 

by zapenstap 

* * *

"What time is is?" Damion asked for the third time in two hours. 

"Still six o'clock," Manny said cheerfully, sitting cross-legged on an upholstered chair in the corner of Damion's hotel room. "Are you going to wear a tie?" 

"No. Too formal. I'm tired of being formal. I want to feel myself." He wasn't really sure what that meant. It was impossible to detach himself from what he was, and it was growing worse all the time. He couldn't imagine what it would be like knowing he had a kingship to look forward to, but the way things were in Taravren now, the presidency was nearly the same thing. It would take a little time for the traditions to catch up with modern times. He was just tired of having to portray the proper image 24-7. 

Manny shrugged, looking him up and down. "Dress shirt and slacks is still formal." 

"Not like lapels and embroidery," Damion said wryly. "And it's still my first day here. I ought to be dressed up all the time. I'm cutting corners as it is." 

Manny grinned. "What about tomorrow?" 

"If all goes well, we can be casual tomorrow, blend and take a tour of the city," Damion said. "Just don't tell my father." 

"Sounds fun. You should buy a gift for your mother," Manny said thoughtfully. 

"Oh, God, your right. What would I do without you?" 

"I'm your best friend, body guard, manservant and caretaker all wrapped in one, my Lord," Manny said with another mischievous grin. 

"Spare me, Manny," Damion said playfully. "What time is it?" 

He laughed. "6:05. Calm down. Why are you so nervous? You wowed everybody with your confidence this morning." 

"I don't feel exceedingly princely anymore," he muttered. "Not now that I'm not wearing a fortune and I'm going to be alone with a very famous and beautiful woman. And I don't have a whole lot else to think about." 

"Consider yourself on vacation and relax." 

"That would be nice," he assented. He wished he had something to drink, though. "What time is it?" 

Manny sighed. "Why don't you just go? I'll walk around the city for a bit on my own." 

Damion smiled gratefully and left without even a coat. The night was pleasant. 

***** 

Relena checked herself in her pocket mirror a block before the restaurant. It was a warm night so she opted to wear a sleeveless sun dress in a brown and black pattern with heeled wooden shoes for street shopping. She left her hair down, with only the front pieces pulled out of her face and clipped behind. Her only jewelry was a pearl necklace and matching bracelet, which was elegant but not gaudy. Taking a deep breath, she checked her make-up--not overdone--and walked the last block to the sea-side restaurant Damion had chosen. 

He was waiting for her outside on the steps, leaning against a black polished rail and looking...entirely different than when she'd seen him this morning. 

The pride and confidence were still visible, but so subdued she hardly noticed, and there was more of a young man's awkwardness about him now, full of self-consciousness with the desire to please a pretty girl. She was instantly attracted, genuinely attracted, especially when he smiled and came to meet her when he saw her. 

"We're both early," she commented. 

He laughed. "It's all right," he said, escorting her in by putting his hand behind her back without actually touching her. She was used to that all her life. "They kept trying to seat me when I was waiting just now, as if I wouldn't wait for you." 

"It's a lovely night," she said. 

"We can sit outside on the waterfront if you'd like," he suggested. She nodded and he spoke to the hostess at the front desk. She smiled and led the way back with their menus and seated them at one of the cute tables on the back patio, decorated with soft glowing lanterns. The sea breeze was sultry and thick, but it felt wonderful, and the air was clean and crisp. The sky was open and glittered with a million stars, each twinkling in its own space, faded only a little by the city lights. 

"I take it back. It's a _gorgeous_ night," Relena murmured in awe. "I should take more nights off. I haven't been out in forever." 

Damion was watching her with an intense, thoughtful expression. "You really do work hard, don't you? Even in your own city where the people love you and would do anything for you. Don't you have anybody who could take you out once and awhile? Friends, family?" 

She shrugged and blushed. "There's a lot of work to be done. Friends... My friends are the people I work with, and my family too. Milliardo is in Space with Noin, working on _my_ project, and he's the only real family I have left. My foster mother visits me occasionally, but she is not an active woman, and prefers talks over tea indoors." Relena shivered. "I think I would much rather be out in the open myself. I'm indoors all the time." She smiled at him. "What about you? I did not actually grow up in the Cinq Kingdom, so I don't really know what it is like to be a princess." 

"You grew up with a friend of your father's, though, right?" 

"Yes," she said, a touch sadly. "I considered him my real father. I didn't find out the truth until he was killed" 

Damion looked abashed. "I'm sorry. That wasn't very tactful of me. I only brought it up because your upbringing was actually very similar to mine. I didn't grow up with my real family either." 

Relena was puzzled. "What do you mean? You didn't know you were a prince?" 

He shook his head. "No, it's nothing like that. I lived with my real parents until I was about twelve and then I was shipped off to live with another family for five years." 

Relena stared. "Why?" 

He shaded his eyes and peeked at her from under his hand, smiling. "You're really not familiar with this?" He grinned, seemingly embarrassed. "It's common. Almost everybody does it. Ask Dorothy if you like. I'm sure she was moved around too. When you're born to power and privilege it's easy to become spoiled, especially in your youth when you don't understand the real world and see yourself at the center of it. As a young child it's not so bad, but when you get older it's common practice for royal families to...exchange their children in order to mature them. In another court, I am still a prince, but not the favored son, and there are others more important than I in another country. So I learned discipline and humility and was trained so I could return home as a real prince and not just a boy with fancy bloodlines. My family would visit me or I them on holidays, but that's all. And it's difficult to make real friends when you carry a title. My only constant companion was Manny." 

"Oh right," Relena said, still bewildered. "I think I saw him with you earlier today. He's your friend?" 

"Yes," Damion replied. "And a good one. I trust him with everything I have." 

"That's wonderful," Relena said sincerely. "I didn't have a lot of friends growing up. It would have been nice to have someone like that I could depend on. Most of my friendships were shams. They were nice girls, and genuinely kind to me, but we didn't share anything beneath a superficial level. I have not kept in contact with any of them." 

Damion nodded with a certain sense of familiarity. "Yeah, me too, only most of my peers were either in competition with me, or scheming for my favor. It's a constant headache." 

"But I thought you said Manny was a friend you could trust? Surely there are others?" 

Damion chuckled. "Manny's my friend, but he also calls me 'Master.' " 

Relena blinked, not comprehending what he meant. 

"He's my servant," Damion clarified. 

"Oh," Relena said, not sure what else to say. 

"It's not so bad as it sounds. We've been together since we were small. His family has always served mine and we grew up together, depended on each other. When I was younger we used to pull pranks together and take field trips. We even used to steal clothes and dress him up as another Lord's son so he could accompany me to places he usually wasn't allowed. But, of course, we were always discovered and he was reprimanded and so was I. When I went away, he came with me and as I was trained to be a prince, he was trained to be a prince's body servant. Now that I've taken on some of the responsibilities of my inheritance, there is more of a division between us." 

"There didn't used to be?" 

"There always was some difference. When we were children I would throw around "Remember, I'm the prince!" but he wouldn't always let me get away with it." Relena laughed at the mock ferocity on his face as he recounted fond memories. "And he's knocked me down twice in the past, and we've been in more fights." 

Relena laughed out loud. "He knocked you down?" 

"Manny's a boxer. We got in a fight once--I can't remember what it was about; something dumb--and he knocked me down. I was the one who got in trouble for it too, but I think it might have been my fault. He did it again two years later, but that time _he_ got in trouble. We've both sort of grown out of that now, but I will always appreciate those memories. Manny has always been true to me above anybody else, even my father. I appreciate that more than I can say." 

At that moment, their waiter came to take their orders. Knowing Damion was wealthy and probably used to exquisite food, Relena had no reservations about ordering whatever she really wanted. He did the same and as soon as the waiter left they both laughed. 

"Did you have to order the most expensive thing on the menu?" Damion asked jokingly. 

"I might not get another chance!" Relena shot back. "Goodness knows you can probably afford it!" 

"So I can," he said, leaning back in his chair. "I'm not complaining about my lot in life, but I'll bet you have enough resources to order the best of everything yourself." 

She smiled sheepishly. "I do have assets," she admitted. "And I make good use of them, but I don't spend them on myself a lot." She blushed. "Sometimes I do. I just don't go _out_ a lot." 

He sat up. "You're too hard on yourself," he said, "but wonderfully honest. I don't think I've met a girl of your station as honest as you." 

"You haven't?" 

"No. I told you; most of my peers are in competition against me or seeking my favor and they fake and lie through their teeth to get ahead. I have to be careful." 

"I'm sorry," she said sincerely. "That must be hard." 

"I'm used to it. Most of them are not generally bad people; they've just been train to scheme and wheedle to succeed. We all have are faults. Most people hate me simply for being who I am and acting as I do, whether it's honest or not. Generally, the Machiavellian prince rules better and with more respect than the generous, genuine type, but it's a sacrifice of yourself to learn to be that way, and I'm not sure I have it in me and not to care what regular folk think." 

"The world is changing," Relena said quietly. "Democracy is changing it. Surely it is no longer necessary to rule cruelly in order to rule efficiently?" 

"I know," he said, "and I'm glad, but there are still expectations for families such as mine. I will never be a true ruler anyway, for which I am both thankful and apprehensive. It leaves me in a hollow place where my upbringing is more to my disadvantage and I shall never achieve what I was promised, but it is good for Taravren and good for the world, and I shall lose none of my current privileges, so I consider it a welcome turn of events in the long run." 

"That is my decree you speak of. There can be no kings without kingdoms, and I eliminated them." 

Damion looked at her, the light of the stars reflecting in eyes the color of rain. "The Romafeller Foundation and royal families have been in opposition for countless years. The Foundation is made up of lesser aristocracy than royalty, people who would like to see us brought down and themselves raised up. Your entrance to the scene was a stunning change because you _were_ royalty, supporting the Foundation and discarding your self interest in hopes of making a better world. The Foundation is a united body whereas the royal families are divided and at war with one another, so your forming alliance with them was more to your advantage than reaching out to the real leaders of nations. My father applauded your move and stepped down from his throne. The world has changed so much, kings and rulers are not what they used to be, and the position was merely ceremonial. He is now President, and in possession of all the same powers he once had expect that he is subordinate to the World Nation. Don't ever think you have done any of us a disfavor; the world will be better for it, and that should be the goal of ruling authorities anyway." 

Relena was both moved and speechless. "I was forced into taking that position," she said quietly. "Duke Durmail manipulated me into becoming Queen of the World." 

Damion closed his eyes and nodded. "That does not surprise me. Farnworth, Taravren's Security General, hypothesized as much at the time. But obviously the Duke could not control you, because he would have put himself in your place if he could, but you won over the people, and the Foundation, and the World. You brought peace. Anyone who doesn't respect you for that is an idiot who does not comprehend the situation and politics involved. And you are not an idiot, Relena." He paused. "May I address you by your first name?" 

She nodded. "Damion," she began, and he nodded. She continued, "Thank you." 

"For what?" he asked. 

"For believing in me." 

He smiled. "You're welcome. And thank you," he said. "For being so honest, and such pleasant company." 

When dinner came, their conversation turned more light-hearted. Damion had a politcally-aware mind and shared her opinions on more matters than she expected. She supposed it was natural that he would be well versed in the matters of the world, but he approached it in such a light-hearted manner she found herself laughing over matters she used to talk about with utmost seriousness. Even so, he kept turning the conversation from what he called "work" and asked her about her family and her interests and dreams for the future. Whenever she stumbled over something "work-related" he steered her away toward more personal desires. 

"I should like to go riding more often," she admitted. "I used to ride a lot when I was in school and I haven't in a long time." 

"Then let's go tomorrow," he said. "There are a lot of green hills and fields in this area. Surely you have stables?" 

She nodded. 

"Would you like to go?" 

She nodded again, feeling girlish and almost out of her mind. Horseback riding? She had to work! "Can we go after lunch so I can get something done in the morning?" 

"If you insist," he said, "but the morning is the best time to go." 

She considered and finally ducked her head, hiding her smile and her flush. "Okay, we'll go tomorrow." 

"Yeah? Can I pick you up at 6:00?" 

"You _really_ want to go in the morning." 

"We can catch the sunrise." 

"All right. 6:00 am, but don't expect me to be awake." 

"Excellent. Then I had better get you home so you can get some sleep. You're probably exhausted from the day." 

She was. And they were both finished eating. Damion stood and walked around the table to her chair, helping her stand. She shook out her skirt and took his arm when he offered it. Damion paid at the hostess desk with a credit card and then led her out onto the streets. It was starting to get a little chill and Relena shivered. 

"Now I wish I had brought my coat," he said, "for you, not for me." 

"I'm fine," she said. 

He led her to the castle and she suggested they use the back entrance as it was smaller and more personal. He led her around the back and up to the door without complaint. 

"Goodnight," she said, standing one step above them. She suddenly realized it would be appropriate to thank him with a goodnight kiss but wasn't sure how to go about it. What is he thought her indecent? And was she supposed to wait for him or make the first move, or was it okay to _not_ kiss him and just see him tomorrow, or what? "I had a great time." 

"So did I," he said. He paused, seemed to search her face and then took a deep breath. He jumped up to the next step and drew close. "Can I kiss you?" 

She nodded and closed her eyes. 

As he leaned into kiss her, his warm breath mingling with hers, she had a sudden flashback of a different kiss, unlooked for and never explained. But Damion was not Heero Yuy, and she knew that when his lips met hers and she tasted him. He was confident, but not over aggressive, and though her heartbeat quickened, she didn't feel completely washed away. It was a chaste kiss and he pulled lightly away, looking into her eyes to read what she thought. Heero hadn't done that; he had vanished. She smiled, thanked him, flushed, opened the door, whispered another goodnight, and shut the door softly. 

Only when she was safely inside, leaning against the door, did she allow herself to breath regularly again. The only word she could think of to describe what she was feeling was "odd," and even that didn't sum it up quite right. So when she put on her pajamas and climbed into bed, she stared up at the ceiling and tried in vain to sort out her emotions. 

***** 

Heero sat in the dark and watched Relena and Damion on their date. He heard little of what they said, but he saw them laughing and smiling at each other and saw their eyes meet without awkwardness and he felt sicker and sicker and sicker. 

He didn't know what he was doing here. It was entirely inappropriate, but something strong and untamable moved deep within him as he watched the scene unfold and he wasn't sure if he felt more like crying or fighting. 

And he definitely knew it was obsessive and sick to follow them home, but he had to know, and when Damion leaned in to kiss Relena he closed his eyes and refused to watch. But what he imagined was worse than what actually happened and even when he opened his eyes to see the truth, he was uncomforted. 

She liked him. And he liked her. And they had the world in common and he was wealthy and attractive and a prince. And she was Vice Foreign Minister and beloved by the people. And all Heero wanted to do was hold her and touch her skin and look into her eyes and kiss her lips, and the more he thought about it the more carried away he got. And he hated Damion. He was jealous of Relena and envious of Damion's place with her and he hated him irrationally and unforgivably. 

So he sat in the dark with his head in his hands and tried to stop thinking about touching Relena's shoulders and neck and face and hips and tried to stop thinking of killing Damion or beating him, but he tried in vain and all the time he knew he was sick in the head and sicker at heart. 

* * *

Next chapter: Heero and Damion meet 

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	4. Chapter 4

Heart of the Sword   
Chapter 4 

by Zapenstap 

  
  


"Hey, man, where were you last night?" Duo asked in a laid-back tone, looking over his shoulder as Heero walked into the Preventor's office lobby before dawn. "Quatre and Trowa arrived late last night. I tried for hours to get a hold of you." 

Duo was lounging in a chair with his feet on the coffee table. The other three gundam pilots had assembled in the room, Quatre and Trowa sitting across from Duo and Wufei lounging against the wall with his arms crossed. 

Heero paused in the doorway. It was the first time they had all been gathered in the same room since Christmas, and only briefly then. He hadn't even heard from Trowa since then. "I got your message," he said to Duo. Obviously, or he wouldn't have known to come here, but Duo apparently needed help. 

"How have you been, Heero?" Quatre asked with a smile. He was always so friendly. "How's Relena?" 

"_Uh..._" Duo stammered in warning, waving his hands to shush Quatre. Heero wanted to smack them both. The thought stunned him. He had to kick this thing. 

"She's fine," Heero said dismissively, walking to the empty chair by Duo. But when he got there he found he couldn't sit down. He was too restless. 

"She's seeing Prince Damion Ravineere," Wufei said coldly without lifting his head. 

There was a moment of reflective, uncomfortable silence. 

"What happened, Heero?" Quatre asked sympathetically. "Did she turn you down after all this time?" 

Heero decided he needed something to drink and turned toward the bar in the far corner, ignoring Quatre's question. 

Duo rubbed his hand across his face. "She didn't have anything _to_ turn down," he muttered. "Heero's never asked her anything." 

"Then why do you spend so much time here?" Trowa said quietly, addressing Heero, elbows on his knees. "I thought she was your reason for hanging around on Earth." 

"I just like to keep an eye on her and keep in touch with things," Heero said coolly, finding a coke in the fridge beneath the bar. He poured a little rum in it where no one could see, took a long swallow, and took it with him back to the table. "She can see whoever she wants." Quatre's eyes softened. Trowa frowned. 

"Yes, well, I meant to talk to you earlier," Wufei said, not directly looking at him. "This Damion Ravineere came to see us after the council yesterday. There's been delinquent activity in Taravren. People have been painting graffiti on the doors of government officials homes and offices. There have also been shipments of unauthorized arms into that area. President Ravineere and the local police have been handling the matter openly as civil unrest, but they suspect a larger operation, possibly with international backers, and have asked for our assistance. We haven't yet been able to trace down any names, but an anonymous call warned us that Damion himself might actually be suspect." 

Heero snapped into life. "Who is this person?" 

"Is there a motive? Evidence?" Quatre asked. "I mean, I've never met the guy, but I've heard good reports on him." 

"Nothing substantial," Wufei replied. "Just that he might feel it's about time he took over for his father. He's old enough, and there have been rumors that he is not so nice to _everybody_. A Miss Clara Veron, the daughter of the Duke of Taravren, complained of being mistreated by him sometime in the past, but that's old... Heero, where are you going?" 

"He's out riding with Relena," Heero said darkly. "Alone. If he has anything to do with this, he may be trying to use her somehow." 

"Don't jump to conclusions. They're just rumors," Trowa said in a dark, practical tone. "Don't do anything rash. If he is criminal, you don't want to scare him away." 

"I gotta agree with Trowa, Heero," Duo said dubiously. "Don't you think you're jumping the gun a little? I mean, maybe you're a little bias..." 

"Are you all defending this Damion stranger?" Heero snarled. "Is _everyone_ going to turn on me now?" He strode out of the room and slammed the door, breathing heavily. He was enraged. There was no reason to be enraged, but he was. He charged down the hall, downing his drink with mindless intensity. He's rather be drunk than furious, but there wasn't enough alcohol in this one drink for that. 

"Hey, wait up, Heero!" Duo called, chasing after him. 

Heero put his mug on a table in passing and kept walking. There were rumors that Damion mistreated a girl? He wiped sweat from his brow with his arm, feeling feverish again. Relena might be in trouble. She still needed him. 

Duo caught up with him at last. "Look, man, I know you're concerned. I am too, but what are you going to do about it? There's no evidence! And you can't just go accusing visiting princes of High Treason. You're a gundam pilot, and everyone respects you, but you're still just a soldier." 

Heero stopped. "You're right. I just want to keep Relena out of harm's way," he said, and started walking again. "So stop following me. See what you can find out about this guy if you want to help so bad." 

He left Duo standing in the hall, his face contorted into a look of confused frustration. "Don't do anything stupid!" Duo called out. "Hey! Come on, wait! Damn it, Heero, why can't you admit you're just stuck on Relena and insanely jealous?" Heero ignored him. Duo fumed and stomped his foot, but Heero didn't turn around. "Can you even ride a horse?" Duo yelled desperately, and sighed in defeat when he got no response. 

***** 

Damion rode just behind and to the right of Relena as their horses thundered across grassy slopes, hooves tearing into the soft ground, grass laden with morning dew. Relena wore full English riding gear, red coat, black pants, boots and all, but her hair was loose and blew behind her in the wind. He smiled and shifted his weight forward just a little, encouraging his own mount to catch up to hers. He pulled up beside her, guiding his horse with nothing but his knees, and got her attention by reaching out and plucking her sleeve. 

She turned and grinned, radiant in the morning as in the evening, and sat back in her saddle, pulling lightly back on the reins. Her horse slowed and Damion followed suit, pulling back expertly beside her. They rode side by side at a walk up a hill. 

"A rest when we get to the top?" he suggested. 

"Oh, it would be nice to sit in the grass and stretch my legs," Relena agreed. "Do you think it's dry enough yet?" 

"Up this high, in the sun..." he tilted his head from side to side, musing visibly for her entertainment. "Might very well be." He smiled. "And if not, I have a blanket." 

She laughed as they pulled to a stop at the top of the hill, right before a breath-taking view of the wilderness beyond the city. The sea glittered to the Northeast. 

"It's beautiful!" she exclaimed. "God, I should do this every morning!" 

The joy on her face was more beautiful to him. He _did_ do this every morning. Feeling suddenly brave, he pulled in closer to her, managing his horse's tendency to vie with her horse with the reins in his right hand. With his left, he reached over and touched her knee. She turned toward him and he kissed her, unexpectedly, and longer and deeper than he had last night. Her lips, lightly chapped from the wind and morning, were as sweet as he remembered, and even sweating lightly she smelled like springtime. He squeezed her knee and wished they were not on horses so that he might attempt holding her, but he never passed up a good moment, and this was classic romance. He was glad now he had listened to the ladies' courtship stories back home, happy that his caretaker family had provided him the equivalent of with six older sisters eager to teach him anything he would learn. He felt rather proud when he pulled away, and was elated by her following smile and the twinkle in her eyes. 

He dismounted smoothly, tied his reins to the pommel horn on his saddle, and walked to the left side of Relena's horse to hold her reins and help her dismount. She took his proffered hand graciously and dropped lightly to the grass on both feet. It was dry enough. Once she was down, he looped her reins over her pommel horn, removed the blanket he had rolled up behind his horse's saddle, shook it out, and laid it down for both of them. He let the horses graze. 

"Are you going to do everything?" she asked, smiling above him as he knelt. 

"Do you want to do more?" he asked sincerely, sitting and hanging his arms lightly over his knees 

She folded her legs and sat down beside him, raking fingers through her long, straight honey-colored hair. "No, I was only teasing." 

"You never know these days," he said. "Some women like a lot of control. Thirsty?" 

"Tired," she said. "I wish I could spend days and days doing nothing but enjoying the Earth," she closed her eyes as a breeze swept up over the hill. He looked into her face, smooth and young and beautiful, watching her enjoy the wind and the world. He could already see the worry-lines he had noticed at the council beginning to fade. 

Before he knew it, he was kissing her again. And to his delight she responded with more energy this time, her lips parting, her hands taking his face. He was surprised, and turned on, and enjoying every second of it. When she finally pulled away, they were both red-faced, but she was still smiling and the flush in her cheeks was more like a healthy glow than an embarrassing heat. He fingered her hair and took one of her hands, stroking her fingers, and said nothing. She had soft, pretty hands. 

"How long are you going to be here?" she asked quietly. 

"I don't know," he said truthfully. "I have no urgent reason to return home, but I can not stay too long." 

She nodded soberly, looking down. 

"But I can always come _back,_" he added thoughtfully. 

"That would be nice," she said, squeezing his hand. "Because I like you. And that would be nice." This time she did flush with embarrassment. 

"I like you too," he returned. "I would be delighted to visit you often, if you'll have me here. I understand you also go away a lot." 

"I make tours, yes," she said, looking away. "And I work hard to keep peace and maintain communication, but it's been a year and things are falling into place, becoming a little more steady, a little more routine. I probably won't have to leave so often in the future, not unless I want to, and maybe I won't." 

He smiled at her and she smiled back and he felt three times over that it was a glorious morning. "Ride some more?" 

"We just sat down," she laughed. But she looked around at the hills and smiled guiltily. "All right. Yes, I would." 

He grinned and stood, offering her a hand to get up. She took it and rose smoothly to her feet. He quietly folded up the blanket and fastened it securely behind her horse's saddle. Just as he was finishing, handing her the reins to her horse, the sound of hooves pounding up the slope made him turn. 

A horse appeared on the horizon with a rider he didn't recognize. Damion's horse's ears lay flat back against his skull and he snorted, backing up. Damion whispered something soothing and ducked under Relena's horse's head until he had hold of both sets of reins, standing between them. 

It was then that he got a closer look at the newcomer's face. 

"Heero!" Relena cried, straightening. Concern painted her features; concern, worry and anxiety. Everything he had worked so hard to erase this morning. "Has something happened?" she asked. 

The rider, Heero, seemed to avoid her gaze, but swung his eyes in Damion's direction. Damion stiffened under that baleful glare. Eyes deeper blue than the ocean and hard as steel bored into him directly, with an undertone of biting...hate. Damion started in shocked surprise. He did not understand it, but he drew himself up, brows lowered in resentment, wondering who this man was. In all the civility he could manage, he nodded politely in welcome. Perhaps something tragic had occurred that had to do with him? But no, he was pretty sure this stranger's mood was personal...and threatening. 

"Everything's fine," Heero said. His voice was dark, dark and deep, and his eyes never left Damion's. 

"Then, if I may ask without offending, what brings you here?" Damion asked straight-out. He was feeling belligerent and he did not like it, not toward someone he didn't even know. But he felt attacked, and he did not know why. 

"Nothing," Heero said. 

"Heero?" Relena asked, sounding confused. "What's this about? What's going on?" 

For a second, Damion thought he saw Heero's face crumble when he glanced at her, as if he were fighting some enormous struggle and lost ground momentarily. But he swung his head and the expression vanished as if it had never been. 

"I'm Heero Yuy," Heero began. 

It sounded familiar, but Damion couldn't place it. 

Suddenly, a second horse appeared on the horizon and Damion didn't recognize him either. 

"Heero! Miss Relena! Prince Damion!" 

"Quatre?" Relena said. "Quatre, what's going on?" 

"Trouble at the castle," the young blonde man said, reining in with the mark of some small training. "Duo got in a fight with _his_ servant," he said, pointing at Damion. "He's..." 

"Oh, bloody hell," Damion cursed under his breath. "Relena, can I call you later?" 

She nodded. "Of course, but what...?" she began. 

"Don't worry. I'll take care of it," Damion said. He swung into the saddle in one fluid motion and wheeled his horse around. 

Quatre looked toward Heero and some question to pass between them, but Heero turned away from whatever question Quatre had asked and his eyes locked on Damion. Damion glared back. This guy has something to say, and he had a funny feeling it was mixed up with whatever happened back at the castle. 

"I guess I'll stay with Miss Relena," Quatre offered, sounding a trifle puzzled. 

Damion gave his hurried thanks and booted his mount into a canter. "You coming?" he said over his shoulder through gritted teeth. Heero glowered but urged his horse to pull up beside Damion's. 

As soon as they were out of earshot, Damion turned on him in anger and resentment. "So what is your problem?" Damion shouted at him as they trotted lightly down the treacherous slopes. "I thought you were going to kill me back there! I think you still might!" 

Heero said nothing for several seconds, but his eyes were intense. "I don't know what's happening back at the castle," he said at last. "I came to find you and Relena, but Duo's my... comrade." 

Relena? They were on a first name basis? Damion took a second look at Heero Yuy. He was good looking, seemingly confident, obviously dangerous and hated him for no apparent reason. He remembered Relena's reaction, her expression, the concern in her voice. It all took on new meaning. This Duo was his comrade, huh? Two and two made four. "And I ask you again, what the hell is your problem!?" Damion yelled. He was furious, _livid_ with anger! This boy came because... He had not been this angry in years. Manny had better be all right! He felt like swearing to color a sailor's face. 

Heero didn't answer. 

"Oh, you're something!" Damion snapped in his rage, and then he delivered a blow that would confirm his suspicions if they was right. "She's never mentioned you!" It was only the truth. 

Heero's face grew cold as stone. Expression hardening, he urged his horse into a gallop. They leaped to flatter ground and Damion stood lightly in his stirrups, picking up speed as he leaned low over his horse's neck. He could feel the ground fly away beneath them as his horse's gait became smoother, fluid like water. And he passed Heero up. He and his horse tore across the ground like lightning, like sunlight. The wind whistled in his ears and bit across his skin, but he urged more speed until horse and rider were flying at a dead run, racing for all the world like they were being hunted. 

And Heero kept up. He did not sit his saddle as well, and he was harder on his horse to get it to keep pace, but he did not lose his balance, and there was no fear in his eyes. They seemed to burn now with an inner flame. Even in his fury, Damion was impressed, that such an inexperienced rider could keep pace with him, but it only made him more determined to win this race and prove...something. 

Pace for pace, beat for beat, both riders pressed their steeds to their limits, driving them as fast as they could run, as they had ever run before. The thrill of it was almost too sweet, and he knew it was dangerous. He had raced before, but not with such fury, such desire to overcome, and with a horse who's merits he did not know, and on terrain that was unfamiliar. And he felt he was flying faster now than he had ever before, and the elation was almost too much to bear. But Heero was not giving up. 

New Port City came into view as they bounded over the next crest and leaped down the slight slope to the street. Damion checked his pace for the impact of grass to concrete, but Heero urged his mount faster. Damion cursed as he urged his horse to speed up again. The fool was likely to get both his horse's and his own neck broken! But miraculously, the horse seemed to anticipate the danger and landed flawlessly, hooves battering the street, skidding on loose pebbles, but regaining balance and bolting forward in short time. Damion followed up behind, using every skill he knew to catch them. 

They entered the city side by side, their horses lathering, tongues hanging out of their mouths. By a hair, Damion reached the stables first and vaulted out of his saddle before his mount had stopped moving and the grooms could grab the reins. Heero came after him, literally jumping to the ground from the horses back. He hit and rolled, but came smoothly to his feet again. 

Damion turned a moment to stare in bewilderment, but then turned away again and shot for the castle gates. The guards let him in without questions, and Heero too. They ran in together, racing each other still, looking straight ahead. People of all sorts leaped out of their way. If they competed much longer, Damion had the feeling it would turn into a regular brawl. 

And he still did not understand clearly what was going on. 

"Damion!" 

Damion halted suddenly and turned at Manny's voice, forgetting Heero completely. Heero stopped too, and looked at him with eyes that flamed with predatory light, but then he ran on and disappeared down the corridor. Damion didn't care. This was insane. It needed to stop. 

Manny had been running too, but he slowed to a stop at Damion's side, gasping for breath. 

"Manny, what happened?" Damion asked above indoor voice level. "I came as quickly as I could. They said you were in a fight." 

"I knocked him down, my Lord!" Manny expelled, breathing heavily, anguish in his eyes. "I didn't mean to. He insulted you. He was saying horrible things and I just... I just hit him!" 

"Who? What? What did he say?" 

"He doubted your character. He asked if you were, oh _God_, if you were involved somehow in the rebellion, against your own father! He wanted to know your intentions with Miss Relena! It was too much, sir. You, being accused of treason and taking advantage of girls. I couldn't help it; I just hit him!" 

He was accused of _what_? "Who was this?" The young blonde, Quatre, had said Duo, but that was no help. 

"I...I don't know. Young guy, big blue eyes, loud mouth, long braid. He just came up to me, joking around. He asked me if I _minded_ being a servant, like I should be ashamed, and then delivered all those lies about you, as if he thought I would agree, like I resented you!" 

"Okay. Calm down. You have no idea who this was?" 

"That Preventor found us in the hallway, the chinese guy. He said "Maxwell" and then charged me with assaulting a gundam pilot!" 

Damion stared at him. Duo Maxwell, Gundam Pilot 02. "Wufei Chang? He's a gundam pilot too." 

Manny groaned and looked like he was going to fall over. "I knocked him down too!" 

"_What_?" Damion yelled. 

"I had to! He wouldn't let me pass! Then he came at me. I got a few marks before I got him, sir. The guy knows how to fight." 

"_Manny," _he growled, "this _isn_'t okay. You've assaulted two gundam pilots in the Cinq kingdom, and one a Preventor!" 

"I was just trying to protect you, sir, and me too toward the end. What's going to happen to me?" 

Damion rubbed his forehead with his fingers. "I'll take care of it," he said wearily. 

Suddenly, it came back to him and he groaned. Heero Yuy, Gundam Pilot 01. That belligerent madman who had raced him to the city today over a girl was the same hero that had saved the Earth from Libra and brought peace to the universe. 

"Well, this is one hell of a mess," he said to no one in particular. 

* * *

what do you think now? 

main page 


	5. Chapter 5

Heart of the Sword 

Chapter 5 

by Zapenstap 

  
  


Heero sat in the cockpit of the Wing Zero and leaned back with his eyes open, watching the screen on the ceiling. He was running a training program through the computer, firing at targets with a hand-held switch like a computer game. Well, it was a computer game, more or less, but he couldn't think of what else to do. He wanted to battle more now than he ever had in his life, only he didn't want to hurt anyone. He never wanted to hurt anyone again. He was sick of death and destruction and the endless stream of hatred and thoughtlessness. That was _over_ now. _She_ had ended it. What he really wanted, what he needed, was a domestic life, to reenter the world as it was meant to be. 

He spasmed with something like tears without the tears. Dry crying. He wanted to spend that life with Relena. He wanted her to know him fully and understand him. He thought she had understood some. Maybe. But he wanted more. He wanted her hands to touch him, his face, his body, and he wanted to look deeply into her eyes, to see the care and worry that had once rendered his heart and _tell_ her how much that meant to him, what she meant to him. But she had chosen someone else now, and he found himself slipping back into old habits. 

He had to prove himself somehow, that he was a better man than Damion, better for Relena. He had to do... something, but his mind was so clouded with dark thoughts of Damion holding Relena in his place that he couldn't think straight. 

***** 

Alone in his room, Damion had cleared all the furniture out of his room and stripped to a gray sweatpants and a white tank, revealing muscles and a build usually hidden by nice jackets and dress shirts. He was sweating from head to toe, barefoot, his hands powdered with white chalk and wrapped in tape. The quarterstaff in his hands blurred as he spun it over locked wrists and between nible fingers. The punching bag swung before him and the ends of the staff swatted it with the power to split skulls. And it hit rapidly and repeatedly. Had that punching bag been a man, he would have been crippled and practically unrecognizeable by now. He had only been practicing with the quarterstaff for only a few minutes. 

He had been training since daybreak, blowing off steam, restless and unable to calm himself. He had already bloodied his knuckes with punches alone, had wrapped and bandaged them and then practiced sword forms for another two hours. He had tried throwing daggers, but there wasn't enough energy in it too satisfy him. He needed something with less concentration and more hitting involved. The quarterstaff had always been a favorite weapon, though practically useless in this day in age. 

He had been trained in fighting since he was little. He didn't learn it to be violent. He learned it to protect himself and learn discipline. Except in training, he'd only really been in a few fights, and two of those were with Manny. There had been a brawl with another trainee when he was thirteen, the son of a marquise, and he had once had to defend himself or others once or twice besides, but little more. He was no soldier, and though maybe he had the skills to be something of the sort, he never learned to pilot a mobile suit. Not that he would be allowed to fight anyway, but it grated now. 

He swore loudly and colorfully, throwing his quarterstaff to the floor and throwing himself at the punching bag with hands and feet again. 

"Why does it have to feel like this!" he seethed to no one. "I've done nothing wrong! Damn it!" He gave the bag one last punch and walked away, feeling like hell and having nothing to do. He sat on a stool in the corner with his elbows on his knees and hung his head. 

The early morning was passing away and it was time to let his mood pass with it. He needed to clear his name with the Preventors somehow, talk to his father, pay for any damages held against Manny for the incident yesterday and apologize. He felt horrible about the whole day yesterday, except the parts when he was alone with Relena. She had been understanding when he called her later to apologize, and seemed appalled at what happened between Duo and Manny. He hadn't told her about his race with Heero, or even asked about him. He didn't want to do that over the phone. Actually, he didn't want to do it at all, but he felt he had a right to know what was going on so he could make good decisions. He thought he could guess some of it. 

Obviously Heero Yuy and Relena had had something in the past, a relationship or a romance or something. And obviously Heero at least was still possessive of her. Damion would expect someone as kind as Relena to still care for an old flame, but what happened yesterday boggled his mind. The guy has openly challenged him, without words or explanation, only with a vicious and obvious hate. And Damion was still pissed about that because he felt he was being treated unfairly. Heero should be dealing with Relena, not with him. The only thing he could think of was that Heero knew Relena was not interested, and turned on the new guy as a last resort. If that was the case, Damion didn't respect that, but he wanted to get the whole story before he made any conclusions and decided how to deal with this thing. 

All he knew for sure was that he generally liked Relena and wasn't going to give up on her just because it maddened some other guy, even if he was a gundam pilot. 

Feeling somewhat calmed, he took a shower and changed his clothes. Realizing he should probably wear gloves to hide the split skin on his hands, he dressed nicely. He had hoped to be done with even semi-formal clothes for the rest of his stay here, but since he had to apologize to numerous people, he supposed he might as well look his best. He hoped to avoid Heero, though, at least until he knew more of what was going on. 

***** 

Duo watched Quatre pour tea in some amusement. That his comrade and fellow gundam pilot drank more tea than the British was entirely different from what he would have expected if he'd known he was going to become friends with these guys. 

"So did Heero say anything?" Quatre asked as Duo took his tea cup and tried it. Ugh...bitter. It needed at least a few spoonfuls of sugar. 

"Nah. He asked if I was all right and then ran away like he always does. He's still stressin' over that Damion guy I think." 

Quatre's eyes grew soft and thoughtful. "Duo, do you think Heero meant what he said, about only hanging around on Earth to keep an eye on Relena?" 

Duo took another sip of tea. It was too hot too. "Nah. He's full of shit." 

Quatre blinked and set down his teacup. "Then why doesn't he say something? I mean, if Relena likes him and he likes her..." 

"Oh, he more than just likes her," Duo said confidently. "Have you seen the way his face get all weird when he looks at her? But she's with Damion now, so I guess we'll never know." He coughed. "I'm sorry, Quatre, but I need sugar if I'm going to drink tea." 

"I have honey," Quatre offered, fishing a bottle out of a drawer behind him and handing it over. 

"Good enough," Duo said, accepting it. He squeezed so much honey into the cup, Quatre's eyes nearly popped out of his head. 

There was a knock on the door. 

"Come in," Duo said cheerily, setting the honey back on the table. The door creaked opened and Duo saw Quatre start in surprise, half standing from his chair. "Wha...?" Duo began, turning around. 

"Damion," Quatre said, sitting back down. "I'm Quatre Raberba Winner. We sort of met yesterday. This is Duo Maxwell." 

Duo blinked. Prince Damion didn't look all that magnificent. He was good-looking, sure, and had powerful gray eyes, but though his clothes were nice, Duo didn't see what all the fuss was about. His expression was almost contrite. Duo grinned, feeling confidence rather than resentment. 

Damion nodded politely to Quatre and turned to Duo. "I wanted to apologize for what happened yesterday." 

Well, well, he _was_ nice. Duo shrugged. "Yeah, me too, I guess. I was just being my usual irresponsible self again. I guess I thought your servant wouldn't like you or something. Just so you know, I don't really believe any of those things I said. I was just finishing for information." 

"Manny will be glad to hear that," Damion said. "I've already talked to Wufei and Lady Une about it too. They've promised not to release any more unconclusive information on me until we can get the problem locked down." 

"Do you mind my asking what _was_ up with those rumors?" Duo asked. "Pretty serious charges." 

"For the treason, I don't know. Anybody can spread a rumor like that." 

"And about mistreating a girl?" Duo pressed. "Clara Veron?" 

"If you consider not marrying her mistreating her, than I suppose," Damion replied wryly. 

Duo choked on his tea. "Were you ever in a relationship with this girl?" 

"No. I've escorted her to a few formal functions, but no, there's never been anything between us." 

Quatre stared. "Who do you think would have started such a rumor, then?" 

"I suspect she did," Damion replied. "Or one of her maids or friends. It's hard to say. She's very ambitious." 

"Huh," Duo said. "Well, then I guess I'm in the wrong. You can tell Manny that I'm sorry too." 

Damion nodded. "I will. Are you okay? Manny hits pretty hard." 

"I'll survive. I think my pride was most damaged," Duo lamented. 

Damion chuckled, and the smile remained. "If it makes you feel any better, Manny's a champion boxer. He's won a few medals. And he's knocked me down before too." 

Duo felt lighter already. "It does indeed! I'll bet I can outsoldier him!" 

"Probably," Damion said, smiling. 

"Where you in the war, Damion?" Quatre asked suddenly. 

Damion's eyes shifted. "No. I was forcibly kept out of it. I had bodyguards 24-7. I did do some serious comm work toward the end to save the Earth. Everybody united for that, but I was never in any battles." 

Quatre looked down at the table. "I wasn't supposed to fight," he said. "Like you, I was an heir. Do you regret not fighting?" 

Damion's brows lowered in concentration. "I don't know," he said at last. "I wanted to fight, and I feel like I missed out on something, but I was only fourteen at the time." He frowned and shook his head. "But then, you Gundam Pilots were only what, fifteen? I suppose in that case I'm ashamed for not fighting." 

"No," Duo said thoughtfully. "You've got responsibilities. I had nothing to lose but my life and I didn't care about that." 

"But Quatre fought," Damion said. "He has responsibilities." 

Quatre smiled weakly. "I was disinherited. And I lost everyone closest to me. Besides, I had the Maguanac to protect me when I needed them. And I happened to live where a gundam was being built. It's too hard to say what I would have done otherwise." 

Damion nodded, but then glanced at them sharply. "What about Heero?" 

Duo snorted, throwing up his hands. "What about Heero?" 

"He hates me," Damion said calmly. 

"Heero hates everybody," Duo drawled. "He doesn't trust anyone and he's totally anti-social." 

Damion's eyes harded. "Was there something between Heero and Relena I should know about?" 

Duo put his hands behind his head and scrunched up his face. He figured he should avoid assumptions and just give the facts he knew for sure. Presumption had certainly caused him enough problems yesterday! "Not really. I mean, kinda, yeah.   
_I_ think he's totally stuck on her, but no, nothing I know about has actually happened between them." He shurgged and grinned, "Except promising to destroy her, but she..." 

"_Duo_!" Quatre hissed in warning. Damion's eyes had flared with fire. 

Duo winced. "It's not really like that," he said hastily. "Heero's a great soldier. The best. And that was long time ago, before they knew each other and..." 

"Duo, _drop_ it!" Quatre said. He looked up at Damion softly and smiled. "Heero's very dedicated and he's never failed a mission, but he couldn't kill Relena, even when it seemed necessary." 

"And that's it?" Damion said in obvious surprise. "_That_'s their relationship?" 

Duo and Quatre exchanged a look. "Well, there's more to it, I _guess_," Duo said lamely. 

"But they were never actually together?" Damion pressed. 

"No," Quatre said. "I don't think so. Heero looks out for her now and again, but I guess not." 

"He looks out for her?" Damion repeated. "After saying he was going to kill her?" 

Duo and Quatre shrugged and nodded. 

Damion tapped his fingers against the wall. "And that Mariemaia incident, when Heero Yuy blew up the compound she and Mariemaia were both in? Was he protecting her then?" 

Duo looked down and scratched his head. "Yeah, well..." He wanted to defend Heero, but he wasn't sure what to say. 

"No, it's okay, I get it," Damion said, rubbing a hand through his hair. "He doesn't want to kill her but he's dedicated to the mission?" 

"In a nutshell," Quatre said sadly. "But," he added. "No one really knows how he feels. I mean, there may have been more we don't know about. He's not the most readable guy. And he really is kind." 

"And I still say he's stuck on her," Duo said firmly, crossing his arms. "Because he sticks around all the time if for no other reason." 

"Thanks," Damion said, turning to leave. "And again, I'm sorry for yesterday." 

"What are you going to do?" Quatre asked. "About Heero, I mean." 

Damion paused. "Nothing. As long as he doesn't outright attack me, I don't see what right I have to do anything. But do you think it's fair? I mean, if there's nothing between him and the girl and I like her, is it okay for me to try?" 

Duo shrugged uncomfortably. "Heero's my friend," he said at last. "And I would like to say 'leave Relena for Heero,' but I guess that would be something Heero should discuss with Relena, not you. And you seem to be a nice guy, so I don't know. I mean, as long as you don't have bad intentions..." 

Damion shook his head, holding onto the doorframe. "No. I just like her a lot. I'm just trying to be happy and I want her to be happy and if we can do that together, so much the better." 

"Everybody has the right to fall in love," Quatre said quietly. "But maybe you should talk to Relena. Me and Duo, we don't _really_ know anything." 

Damion lowered his head. "How well do you know Relena?" 

"I don't really know her much at all," Duo said. "She always seemed a little weird to me." 

"I spent some time with her when I was defending this kingdom," Quatre said. "Heero was here too." 

"Do you think I should just ask her flat out what's going on?" Damion asked. "Or does that sound harsh? Because I don't want to sound like I'm blaming either of them. I just want to know what's going on so I can deal with it." 

"Is something going on?" Duo asked, perking up. "Did you guys have a fight or something?" 

"Not exactly. We had a race on the way here yesterday. I won. He hates my guts. Should I worry about it?" 

Duo was worried, but he didn't dare let on. Who knew what Heero would do? _Did_ he really like Relena, or was he just bummed seeing her with someone else? It was so hard to tell with him, and he wouldn't talk about it with anyone. He waved a hand in the air. "I'd be careful," he said at last. "But Heero's really not that vicious, not even on the battlefield. He's usually more cold than anything else." 

"He's kind," Quatre said softly. "But try to stay out of his way for awhile, just in case." 

Damion shifted his gaze between them uncertainly. "Kind, but cold? Not vicious, but stay out of his way?" 

Duo tapped the table. "Yeah," he said. 

Damion nodded. "All right. All right. I'll try and avoid him for today, but I'm _not_ giving up on Relena. She's in meetings all day today, but I plan on seeing her late tonight. Maybe we can talk about it and she can enlighten me. I won't say I'm not angry at your friend. I don't feel I deserve his contempt. I do feel I have a right to _like_ an unclaimed girl. If he has a problem with that, he should talk to her, not me. So if you see him, tell him to stay out of my way too. If I see him before I understand this, I might..." He shook his head and Duo could see the anger in his eyes. "Just tell him to avoid me too." 

And then he was gone. 

Duo leaned back in his chair and scowled. "Well, this is a disaster waiting to happen. They're both stubborn as all hell." 

Quatre but his chin in his folded hands. "Maybe. I still think Heero has more control than all that. And he really is a good person. And Damion is nicer than I thought." 

Duo just shook his head. He remembered the fiery rage he had seen in Heero's eyes yesterday, and pure unadulterated hate and struggle. Heero had found himself a new enemy. And he had something to fight for. "I hope you're right, Quatre," he said quietly. "I hope you're right." 

***** 

Late in the day, Relena looked at her watch as she packed up her materials from her third meeting and headed out the door for her fourth. It was a long day, but a fruitful one, and it brought a healthy, independent glow to her cheeks. 

Someone grabbed her wrist as she turned at the door. 

She stopped in surprise, turning back around. Her heart seemed to jump into her mouth. "Heero," she said, barely breathing. He looked haunted, dark and haunted, but still darkly beautiful. What was wrong with him? "What is it, Heero?" she asked, trying to get a better look at his face. "What?" 

"I," he began, and seemed to struggle with something. "Yesterday," he said, as if starting a new topic, and his eyes concentrated on her face. 

"Yeah," she said, trying to help him say whatever it was he wanted to say. "That was a bad scene. Is Duo all right?" 

Heero jerked his head dismissively. "He's fine," he said harshly. "I meant you and Damion..." 

Suddenly, it dawned on Relena. She ran through her head that crazy scene on the hill. The curt words. The glares exchanged, Heero aggressive, Damion defensive. She had wondered why he ever came, but now it seemed so clear. So _terribly_ clear. 

Her eyes narrowed and she wrenched her wrist away. "Heero, I don't know _what_ is going through your head exactly, but you can't _do_ this. You can't kiss me and not explain and then wait two or three years and be just _horrible_ when another guy likes me!" 

Heero squeezed his eyes shut when she mentioned the kiss. She hadn't before. She had never been really sure what the hell it was. She had thought it was something once... 

"Is this some sort of game to you?" she demanded. "See how long you can string Relena out? Do you have any idea how long I waited for you? And then you kiss me and act act like it never happened! I'm tired of it, Heero." She pushed passed him, too angry thinking about it to remember how much she really loved him, even still. Then she whirled around again. "As for Damion, he's perfectly wonderful and he takes care of me. And I like him, so just _deal_ with it." She wished she hadn't turned. The expression on his face reminded her of a broken mirror, and it stuck in her mind. 

She fled, slipping into the next conference room full of emotions she couldn't sort out. She wanted to make things better, to hold him, but she _did_ like Damion, and he liked her and he didn't jerk her around like Heero did. None of this was fair to him. And he was more her type, wasn't he? Similiar backround, good family, politically minded, kind, thoughtful... And he wasn't weak. She had seen him ride and he was built and she knew he could fight. And he could probably do a hundred other things Heero couldn't! She had promised herself she was going to get over Heero. 

So why did she feel so wretched? 

* * *

  


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	6. Chapter 6

  
Heart of the Sword 

Chapter 6 

by Zapenstap 

  
  
  
  
  


The capital buildings where Relena had most of her official meetings and the Cinq Castle were separated by either a round-about city walk or a stretch of hills and open country. The hills themselves overlooked New Port City itself and were only sparsely decorated with trees and paths, but it was perfect riding country. 

Except for the weather, it would have been perfect: heavy clouds and a feel of thunder. But as dusk fell over the Cinq Kingdom, Damion chanced the storm warnings and heavy rain when he borrowed a horse he had grown rather fond of and rode to see Relena at the conclusion of the day. 

He wondered if she saw him as a person or as a prince. It was so rare to find the former, but he suspected she saw everybody as real people, and that made him almost giddy with elation. She treated him like a real person and right now, the only reminder he had that he was anything different was the ceremonial knife that he carried whenever he was out of his own country. It had his seal carved into the bottom of the hilt so that he could approve documents with a signature stamp. But more frequently he used it as a letter opener. Still, it was an honorable heirloom, and had been worn by princes for generations. 

He dismounted at the gates, tethered his horse, and walked in. After seeing Quatre and Duo, he had changed to casual clothes, loose jeans and a short-sleeved summer button-up shirt and leather coat, so he felt a little underdressed as he passed men and women in business suits carrying briefcases. But it didn't bother him, and he soon found the room Relena had told him she would have her last meeting at. 

"Damion," she said with a smile as he knocked on the wall before entering. The door was open and everyone but her was gone. He returned her smile, but she must have caught the serious look in his eyes. "What?" she asked. "Did something happen?" 

"No," he said soberly. "But what can you tell me about you and Heero?" 

She sighed and sat down. 

"I'm sorry," he said. "I wouldn't ask, except..." 

"I know," she said wearily. "You don't have to apologize. He came to see me today and I figured it out. I...never would have suspected he'd do anything like that." She shrugged uncomfortably. 

"Everyone keeps telling me he's kind," Damion said truthfully. "But I don't see it. I think he's dangerous. I've been taking advice and avoiding him all day, but anything you can tell me might help." 

Relena put a hand to her head. "Heero," she said quietly to herself. Then she raised her voice to him. "I... it's hard to explain. He's a gundam pilot. When we first met I accidently learned his secret and he told me he would kill me but he never did." 

"Quatre and Duo said something about that," Damion said. He didn't understand this. How did something like that form a relationship? He would think that would be scary and drive a permanent wedge between them. "But I don't understand." 

Relena shifted uncomfortably. "He was just so strong, so filled with purpose, and I wanted to be like that. And I wanted to help." She waved a hand. "It doesn't matter, really. It's hard to explain. I thought there would be something between us once, especially when out of the blue one day he kissed me." 

Damion's eyesbrows rose in surprise, but she continued in contemplative calmness, not looking at him. 

"But it was a stressful situation. He never explained and we never talked about it. I didn't see him again until Mariemaia and since then hardly at all. And when I did see him, he showed no interest in me personally and all we talked about was business, if that. So I figured it was nothing." She picked up her folders and papers and smiled wanly at him. "I don't really understand his behavior recently, Damion. I wish I did." A lost look came to her face and she shook her head. "But it doesn't matter. I'm with you now." 

"Really?" he asked, feeling warm. 

She smiled and took his arm. "Really, but I lied about being able to spend time together tonight. I have so much to do." 

"That's okay," he said hastily. "Do you have a way home?" 

"Pargan's waiting for me with the car," she said. "But can I see you tomorrow?" 

"Yeah," he said, feeling pleasant in spite of everything. "Tomorrow." He kissed her lightly on the lips, smiled and escorted her to the back doors. She smiled at him over her shoulder as she walked down the steps, looking elegant and lovely and professional in her short-skirt business suit. He watched her go and then turned and walked back down the hall to where he had left his horse. 

The sky was looking nasty. As soon as he gathered the reins and turned his horse about a light rain began to fall. Thunder rumbled in the distance. 

"There is going to be a storm," he muttered, stroking the horse's muzzle. "Let's get you and me back, eh?" He swung up into the saddle and took off at a light trot.   
  
  
  


***** 

Heero walked wearily from the city gates to the hill and the tree where liked to sit and think. The sky looked like lightning and rain and there had been many storm warnings, but he didn't care. He'd sit in the rain and drown. Maybe it would cool him off. 

He wasn't sure if he was hot with rage or desire, but both were wrong. He had tried to tell Relena how he felt, but again he couldn't do it. He had rehearsed it. He had promised himself he would just say it and be done, but as soon as he looked into her eyes he found he couldn't say anything at all. 

And then she accused him of being a horrible person. She was tired of him. 

Would she have still said that if she knew how he really felt about her, about all of this? He supposed it depended how _she_ felt. She liked Damion, she said, but Heero loved _her_. He loved her with every breath in his body. He couldn't breath when she was near, couldn't speak; he couldn't say her name for fear that she would hear the caress in his voice. And _God_, how he wanted her. He wanted to touch her body, her face more than anything else, almost anything, and the thought of it maddened him. His blood was on fire all the time. He was consumed in flames and he could do _nothing_ about it. If he _had_ her, he thought he could tame those thoughts and be content to just hold her, but she was with Damion now. And soon, he didn't know how long, but too soon Damion would be able to touch her, if she let him, and the thought of it threw Heero over the edge. And what if he touched her when she _didn't_ let him? There were those rumors, and his own fevered imagination gave them life and darkness. 

"Relena," he gasped aloud, stumbling into the trunk of the tree at the top of the hill. Why hadn't he moved sooner? He had had so much time to make her his, so much time, and he wasted it all. He watched her from the shadows, protected her from danger, kept the world hostage in order to keep her safe, but all that time she was far away. And now he could feel her slipping away from him like a dream, like water through the cracks in his fingers when he was dying of thirst, and it was Damion, a man who had _everything_, who would have her now. 

He hated himself. 

Thunder roared in the distance, a rumble like dragons in the sky, followed by a ripping, spine-chilling crash. Heavy droplets of rain began to fall, splashing his arms, his head, his fevered face. Heero stood straight-backed as night descended, plunging the world into graying darkness as dusk enveloped the world and heavy, rolling clouds and sheets of rain obscured the sun. 

It fit his mood. He felt death in him, cold and chilling and fueled by anger and self-loathing. 

And that's when he heard the sound of horse's hooves. 

***** 

Damion rode low over the neck of his horse, soaked to the bone as rain poured like buckets from the sky, drenching his hair, his clothes, his horse. His jeans stuck to his legs and slipped on the saddle, his coat was ruined, he couldn't see through the storm. 

He thought he caught the glimpse of a figure rising before him from out of the shadows. It was little more than a dark blur, but suddenly his horse squealed as the reins were wrenched from Damion's hands. Thunder rumbled and crashed in the sky, louder as it drew closer. In a flurry of rain and mud and shouts of surprise, Damion was thrown bodily from the saddle. He hit the ground with a squelching thump, landing in grass and mud and growing puddles of dirt and rainwater. 

Swiping wet hair from his eyes, he sat up with a moan, in time to see his horse bolt down the hill in fright. It was well trained. He hoped it wouldn't leave him here and return to the safety of the stables, but if so, the walk was easily manageable, even in this squall. 

Lightning flashed, illuminating the area around him for a moment, and he saw Heero, standing before him, arms loose, but his eyes were terrifying. 

Damion leaped to his feet with a shout, rain rolling in rivlets off his face. "What do you want!?" he screamed into the wind and rain. He could barely hear his own voice through the storm. "Why are you doing this!?" 

Heero's face was like stone, hot brimstone. "I love Relena," he said in a normal tone, but somehow it carried. 

"Bullshit!" Damion yelled back. "What do you want with _me_?" 

"I don't trust you!" Heero shouted back. "Leave her _alone_!" 

"You don't trust anybody! Leave _us_ alone!" Damion roared. Thunder crashed over their heads, multiplying his fury. "She's with me now! You _missed_ your chance! You're dangerous! You don't deserve her!" 

There was a moment of silence as lighting struck again, sheathing them both in crackling white light. 

"I _burn_ for her!" Heero cried, and there was unmistakeably lust in his eyes. 

Damion's eyes and heart flared. He leaped at Heero without hardly thinking and hit him at hard as he knew how in the jaw. Heero reeled, but he wasn't out. When his head came back around, his eyes blazed. Damion felt the blow to his stomach shudder all the way up his torso and explode in a fountain of fiery pain in his head. It only enraged him further. 

They fought savagely, aiming punches and blows mindlessly at the other. Heero could fight, but Damion could too, and both surprised the other. Heero's eyes widened as Damion came at him with viscious intensity, blocking blows and having his own blocked in return. And they both resorted to kicks, and then to barroom grappling, throwing each other in the mud, raining blows on their opponent. Soon both were bleeding from the nose and tears streamed from their eyes. Damion somehow ended up on top and thought he might have cracked one or two of Heero's ribs, but his own chest ached, and he could feel the blood mix with the rain on his face. Suddenly, he was somehow kicked in the head and fell over. Heero pounced on top of him. 

"Why do you hate me?" Damion demanded as he rolled aside from a fist aimed at his head. "I've done nothing!" 

"I love her!" Heero shouted, but there was so much rain and noise and darkness, Damion could make nothing out about his face. 

"She's _mine_!" Damion hissed fiercely, and a sort of calmness enveloped him. This would not be settled by a fight; this would be settled by Relena, and she had just told him that she was with _him_ now. "She told me so! It is meaningless to take this out on me! She doesn't love you! You just want to..." and he squeezed his eyes shut, mind filled with alarming visions. 

Heero stared at him, kneeling over him with one foot straddled over his chest and braced into the ground, fist poised above his face. The meaning behind Damion's unfinished sentence seemed to strike home in his eyes and his face fell apart as he merely breathed, shivering in the sheet rain. 

"You just want to sleep with her," Damion finished, choking, gulping for air. He was trembling all over. 

A haunted look crossed Heero's face. "That's not true," he whispered, almost beyong hearing, and there may have been tears on his cheeks, if it were not just the rain. Then his expression changed to something else. Damion caught it in his eyes before it happened, but trapped as he was, he had no way to react. Heero snarled, his face changing to a look of pure rage and hatred. Damion's eyes widened and he wriggled, pushing backward out from under Heero's hold until he was in a crouch, ready to rise, stand and fight. 

But he wasn't quick enough. A sound completely unhuman ripped from Heero's throat and his hand snaked in close to Damion's body. 

And he drew the ceremonial knife sheathed in Damion's belt. 

Thunder erupted around them in a hollow boom, shaking the ground. The tree behind them crackled, shivered, and split down the center. Lighting flashed overhead, jagged beams of electricity, charged with killing force. 

But not more deadly than Heero's. 

As the lightnings came, lighting up the hilltop, Heero struck. Damion gasped and then screamed as the blade plunged into his side, tearing through his skin, sinking into his body. He coughed, sputtering blood, feeling its metallic warmth in his throat. His own ceremonial knife... He was a prince... "I've done nothing wrong," he mumbled hoarsely, and tears choked this throat. 

Heero loomed over him, but the rage and hate had vanished from his face like fog. There was fear in his eyes now, and desperation. He caught Damion by the shoulders, the knife falling to the ground from a hand spattered with blood, forgotten. "I'm sorry," he whispered. Damion's eyes fluttered. He felt numb. "Damion?" Heero gasped out. "Damion!" 

Heero made as if to lift him up, to help him, but the sound of his own name voiced with concern from this killer's lips lent new strength to Damion's body. He jerked spasmodically, slapping Heero's hands away. The pain came back, overwhelming him, engulfing him in its fire. Tears welled up in his eyes, but he fought back, kicking until he was kneeling on the grass, one hand pressed tightly to his side, struggling to breathe. He brought the other hand to his face and whistled as clear and sharply as he could. 

There was a responsive whinny from just over the hill and his horse came trotting up through the rain and mud, head up and ears perked forward. The saddle sat lonesome on his back, the stirrups flapping. Damion stumbled to his feet, wincing in pain, a cry escaping his lips. But somehow he managed to grab the horse's mane and heave himself up in the saddle. Blood flowed down his side as the movement ripped his skin, and he cried out, but he managed, lying low and broken in the saddle, gripping mostly with his knees. 

Heero remained kneeling in the grass, his expression hidden by the rain and his soaking hair, as Damion urged his horse into a gallop, toward New Port City. 

He did not look back, and soon his head was too foggy with pain to remember where he was going.   
  
  
  


***** 

Terese busily filed Relena's papers into their appropriate folders and chatted away as Relena sat curled on her couch, wearing pajamas and a robe. She had just showered and gotten herself a cup of warm tea before preparing herself for more work when the door to her room burst open. 

She and Terese both turned in surprise and alarm as the thunder and lightning from the storm outside entered their quiet room. And then Damion stumbled in, crouched over and soaked and muddied from head to toe. 

Relena dropped her tea on the couch and leaped to her feet. "Oh my God," she cried, bending over him. She got a look at his face and gasped. There was blood on his cheek and lips, his hair was not just wet, but wild and caked with mud and grass. His shirt was torn. She followed the tear to the hand pressed to his side and noticed the blood oozing down his side from beneath his fingers. "Oh my _God_!" she cried again, "Damion, you're bleeding!" 

He nodded wearily, his eyes glassy, stumbled and fell to his knees. 

"Terese! Help me get him to the couch!" Relena commanded. Terese leaped to assisstance and together they managed to help Damion to the couch. 

He waved them away. "I'm okay. I'm okay," he insisted, but there was pain on his face. 

"Like shit you are!" Terese said, tucking black hair behing her ears. "What the hell happened?" 

"No, really, I think I'll be all right," Damion said, half to himself. "He wasn't aiming to kill after all." 

Relena knelt beside him, pushing the hair away from his eyes. Then she stopped, hands freezing in place. "Heero," she whispered. 

Damion looked at her. "Relena..." he began. "It's not..." 

"No," Relena said, horrified. "This is not okay. God, are you going to be all right? Terese?" she said. 

"Yeah?" Terese said. "What can I do?" 

"Apply pressure here. Call an ambulance..." 

"No!" Damion yelled. "No one finds out about this who doesn't have to!" And then he closed his eyes tight shut, breathing hard. 

"Then call Manny, Terese," Relena said. "Tell him Damion's been injured, not to tell anyone and to bring medical supplies. Do you have the number?" 

"I'm the secretary for the ex-Queen of the World," Terese muttered confidently. "I have everybody's number." 

"Good," Relena said, tying her robe shut and throwing a rain coat around her shoulders. "Take care of him until Manny gets here." 

Terese looked up in surprise. "Wha...? Where are you going in this weather? Relena, you can't!" 

But Relena didn't answer. She merely opened the door and flew out into the night. 

Rain beat upon her face and coat as she pounded barefoot through the street to the hills behind. Damion had been riding today. He would have had to pass through the hills. As she ran she grew carless of her hood and it swept back from her face. Her hair was soaked in minutes, lying lank about her shoulders. 

"Heero!" she shouted into the night as she reached the hills. "Heero!!" 

Only the rain and thunder answered, but she had a funny feeling he could hear her, wherever she was. She ran up the next hill, slid in the mud, and came to her feet again. But she could see nothing in the storm. She searched for twenty minutes, calling out his name. All the while she thought of Damion, lying beaten and bleeding on her couch, stabbed in the side. 

At last she came to a hill with a tree at its crest, the trunk split down the center. A body was huddled under the branches, soaking and yet not seeming to notice. 

"Heero?" she called. 

The figure rose, turned to face her. His expression was haggard, his eyes were dead. As she stared at him, anger stirred in her gut. She had never been this angry at him in all her life, and it hurt something deep within her. She felt she was going to break down as a result, and tears were already rushing up into her eyes. 

He just looked at her for several long minutes of anguish. She clasped her coat closed in front of her chest as he approached, tears streaming down her face. He came within a hand's width of her and touched her face with hesitating hands, fingered her wet hair. She shivered, though she wasn't sure if it was from his touch or the cold rain. "I'm sorry," he rasped. "It was an accident." 

She stopped and stepped back. An accident? Her voice grew cold. "I don't believe you," she whispered. "You aren't capable of accidents." 

He stared at her through the rain, and nothing in his expression denied it. 

"Then why, Heero, _why_!" she demanded, and cried. Her words were broken, her face was red and scrunched and unpretty. "_WHY_?!" she screamed, and hit him in the chest with her fist. 

He pulled away, letting her go, stepping backward. 

"How could you _do_ that to him?" she screamed at him. 

"Relena," he began brokenly, and his voice trembled. 

He said her name... and stabbed a man who really liked her. Lightning crashed. 

"Relena, I love you!" Heero yelled, but at that moment thunder ripped through the sky, absorbing the words until Heero himself couldn't hear them. 

Relena heard nothing but the thunder. "I _hate_ you for this! I hate you for doing this to Damion! I hate you!" Each time she said it, it came out bolder, higher. It was raspy by the end, pulled out of her throat with a hook. "How _could_ you?" she cried, losing herself in her anger, her saddness, her love. "How COULD you! I don't want to ever see you again! I can't stand to see you!" 

And then he was gone, vanishing in the rain and the shadows on the night, leaving her alone on the hilltop in her pain and tears. 

She fled home, heedless of the storm or the mud caked to her feet or her wet hair. She ran to her home and shut the door and ran inside to the couch where Damion still lay. 

"He's feverish," Manny said when she burst in. "But I think he's going to be okay." 

"Relena, look at yourself," Terese pleaded. "Please take a shower and get warmed up. Everything will be okay," she added soothingly. 

Relena leaned over Damion and kissed his forehead and held his hand. She thought of Heero and what she said, and what he had done. Damion looked so pale. And Heero was gone, out of his mind and out of her life. She kissed Damion's hand and held it to her cheek. It was cold. "No. Nothing will ever be okay again," she whispered. 

She felt at fault. 

***** 

Duo leaped to his feet when Heero banged on the door and then opened it and burst in before Duo could answer it. 

"What the hell happened?" Duo demanded as Heero shut the door and sunk against the wall, shivering with cold, soaked from head to toe and covered with mud and grass. There was blood on his face and on his hand. "Heero..." he said. Then it dawned on him. His eyes widened. "Heero, where's Damion? Heero!!" He panicked when Heero didn't respond, merely staring at the knife he held flat on his palm, extended toward Duo. Duo swallowed, eyes wide as he stared at the other gundam pilot. "Heero, what have you done?" 

Heero dropped the knife. "I didn't kill him," he said feverishly. "I don't think so." 

Duo stared. "But you stabbed him, didn't you? Oh, _God_, Heero! This is _not_ okay. You've stabbed a prince?" 

"I know," Heero said quietly, head on his knees. "I think I meant to stab myself. It... it just happened." 

"Is he going to be okay?" Duo asked in a hushed whisper. 

Heero looked away. "I think so," he said almost inaudibly. 

Duo let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding, knealt down beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, now, you don't _know_ what's going to happen," he said, managing a weak grin. "Can we be a little optimistic?" 

"She hates me," Heero said, and Duo stared when tears formed in Heero eyes, the first he had ever seen. "Oh, God, I've _totally_ screwed up. I'm in love with her and she hates me!" And he began to cry. 

Duo had no idea what to do. 

* * *

  
  


Review   
  



	7. Chapter 7

Heart of the Sword 

Chapter 7 

by Zapenstap 

  
  


Quatre knocked on Duo's door. 

"Damn it!" Duo muttered from inside. 

"Duo?" Quatre asked, putting a hand on the doorknob and speaking through the wall. "Have you seen Heero?" 

The door was unlocked. He walked in to see Duo straighten from the ground and wipe sweat from his face. "He's here," Duo said quietly, putting his hands on his hips and sighing. He stepped aside, crossing his arms. "I hope you weren't looking for him to do any missions, though." 

"Oh my God," Quatre said as he shut the door behind him. 

Heero was certainly there, physically anyway. He was passed out on the floor, looking limp and death-like, but he was there. His eyes were shadowed, his skin sagging and discolored. An empty bottle lay discarded on floor, the contents unlabeled. There were shards of glass about too, from other bottles broken. The room smelled like alcohol. Heero's face was covered with bruises. 

"He was like that when I got back here late this morning," Duo said worriedly. "I don't know how much he drank, but I've never seen him like this. He doesn't even drink." 

"Uh," Quatre stammered. "I don't get it. What happened?" 

"He had a fight with Damion last night," Duo said, but Quatre could see he was holding something back, perhaps many things. "That's what the bruises are from. He thinks he's lost Relena and that she hates him. I thought he'd be okay when I went out this morning, but I guess not." 

"Well," Quatre said uncertainly. He wasn't really sure what to say, or what to do. 

"Don't worry," Duo said, forcing a smile. "I'll take care of him. He probably just drank a little too much. He'll snap out of it in a few hours. Can you keep it a secret, though? I don't really think he wants everyone to find out about this." 

Quatre looked at Heero's still form uncertainly. He looked strangely heavy and deathly ill, scarily so. But he nodded anyway. "All right," he said slowly. "I'll go. Just, talk to him or something, won't you, Duo? He hasn't been himself lately and it's affecting everybody." It was disturbing seeing Heero in this condition. He was supposed to be the strong one. 

"I'll try," Duo said, crouching over Heero. "But it might take some time. You want to help me get him to the couch?" 

"Sure," Quatre whispered. 

***** 

Relena wasn't going to go to any of her morning meetings that day, but Terese and Manny together persuaded her that if Damion really didn't want this to be publicly known, they would have to keep up appearances. Manny had called a personal doctor last night to do what he could for Damion and paid him to keep quiet about it. The doctor hadn't known who Damion was, thankfully, and the bruises and welts on his face helped, but Relena had to hide while the doctor was there. Almost everyone knew her face. The doctor assured Manny that Damion would recover, that though his wound was serious, now that it was stitched up, he wasn't in any great danger. 

The assurance only made Relena feel a little better. All through her meetings she felt like crying. 

_Heero, how could you do this?_

She wondered if she was more upset at Heero for damaging Damion or for damaging himself. He had almost destroyed her perception of him, and it was a breathless shock to discover that she had loved him up to that point. But with one mad action, he simultaneously stabbed her love for him as he had Damion. The man she thought so strong, so kind, had _knifed_ an equally kind and wonderful man for no reason. Damion was innocent in all of this. Now Relena wasn't sure what she felt. Anxiety mostly, and anger, but sorrow was keenest. She felt worse now than she ever had in her life. Why had Heero done such a horrible thing? Because he was jealous? He had no right to be! Did she still love him, like him even, or was it too early to tell? 

And what of Damion? Something was growing between them, she knew, and if he was not Heero, he was still wonderful. He didn't deserve to be caught in the cross fire. If she'd known this would happen... but how could she have known? Heero had seemed so entirely disinterested in her, so totally unwilling to express anything. She had felt it legitimately safe to move on. How could she have known this would happen? And now she was caught. And there didn't seem to be any good decisions. 

She walked home around noon, feeling like death, unable even to fake a smile, but she hurried all the same. She wanted to see Damion, to make sure he was okay, to learn his mind and heart on what had happened and what it meant. 

He was still lying on the couch when she entered, quietly shutting the door behind her. He looked terrible and the sight brought new tears to her eyes. He was stripped to the waist, bandages wrapped around his stomach, bulging on one side where Heero had stabbed him. His face and chest were covered with bruises, ugly and purple welts on his cheeks, his eyes, his jaw. 

Manny sat in a chair behind his head, watching him sleep. Manny had stayed up all night with him, watching, talking softly when Damion awoke for short spells. Terese relieved him in the early hours, insisting he sleep some, but as soon as the sun rose over the hills, Manny was awake again, guarding Damion's rest. Terese was not there now. Relena supposed she was either sleeping or working, probably sleeping. 

Manny looked up when she came in. "I think he's better," he said softly, with a small smile. "He was awake earlier." 

Biting her lip, Relena knelt beside him and put a hand to his forehead. He had developed a fever in the night, possibly from fighting in the rain and possibly from the wound in his side and the loss of blood. Whatever it had been from, it had apparently broken. 

To her amazement, his eyes fluttered open when she touched him. They really did remind her of the morning, or of rain and light clouds, but whatever their color, love lingered in them now. That was new. It caught her off guard. 

"How do you feel?" Relena asked, smoothing his hair back. 

"Weak," he said with a smile. "But I think I'll be up and about in a little bit, at least to eat. I'm famished." 

She returned his smile. "I'm glad. Any other feelings?" 

He touched the bandages around his middle hesitantly. "What did you say to him?" he whispered. "When you ran out last night?" 

"That I hate him," she said with a quiver in her voice, and tears sprang to her eyes. He stared at her with love and concern, half sitting up to hold her. "Please don't," she cried. "You don't need to comfort me. Please just rest." 

"I'm fine," Damion said, and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, stroking her hair as she sobbed. "Honestly. I won't be able to run races, not on foot anyway, but I'm really all right. Do you mean that, what you said to him?" 

She couldn't stop crying. "I don't know," she said. "How do you feel?" 

"Better all around," Damion said. "I don't hate him. I don't even know him. I'm a little pissed off, but I'm more concerned about you. There was something, wasn't there? Between you?" 

Relena swallowed. "Doesn't matter," she gulped. "Don't worry about it. It doesn't have anything to do with you and he's gone now. Please lay back down." He obeyed, but there was something in his eyes that spoke of deep thoughts, disturbing thoughts. "Please forget about it," she begged. He looked at her, read the care on her face, and nodded, closing his eyes. "I'll make you something to eat," she said. "But rest for now." 

"Thank you," Damion said. "For everything. You too, Manny. How long have you been there?" 

"Practically all night!" Terese's voice came brightly from the door. She had two grocery bags, one wrapped in either arm. "I tried to get him to go to bed, but he was right back down here after three hours or so." She smiled at Manny over her groceries. 

Manny flushed and shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "Your lady mother would kill me if I let anything happen to you, my Lord," he said unsteadily. 

Damion laughed weakly. "Me too. And I don't consider this gathering public, so drop the formalities. I'm a sick, injured man. I can't handle it today." 

Manny grinned. "Can I do anything for you, Damion?" 

"Can I sit up?" Damion asked, pressing a hand to his side. "I mean, am I allowed to?" 

Manny shrugged, elbows on his knees. "Give it a try. The doctor put quite a few stitches in you and you don't seem to be feverish anymore. I'd say you're recovering." 

"Then food and a little movement will do you good," Terese said cheerily. "But Relena's right about resting too." 

Damion sat up slowly, wincing a little. He saw his face in the mirror above the mantel and laughed. "Well, looks like I'll be indoors for awhile anyway. It can't be found out that the prince of Taravren got in a brawl, for whatever reason." 

Relena pulled the milk out of the refrigerator, but she stopped, caught in thought. That meant he would be in her house for a few days, unless they could sneak him back to his own rooms, but she suddenly realized she didn't want him to go. 

She closed her eyes, feeling suddenly sick to her stomach. Her emotions were all aflutter. She hadn't meant for this to happen. Did she love Heero or hate him? Did she love Damion or merely like him? She felt horrible and at fault, but for the life of her she could not pinpoint when she had done something wrong. 

***** 

Heero opened his eyes to a splitting headache. He thrown up so many times he didn't remember his last meal. He had fallen asleep after that for a little while, but he felt worse now. He felt dizzy and ill and his head hurt so much he could hardly think straight. But it was a fitting punishment. 

"Hey, glad to see you're back," Duo grinned, kneeling in front of him. 

Heero clutched at the blankets and turned his head. "Thanks," he said. 

"Feel like hell, don't ya?" Duo said. "Don't worry. It will pass." 

"I don't want it to pass," Heero said, leaning his head back and gulping in air. "I want to be in pain." 

Duo swore. "Come on, Heero, don't talk like this. It isn't like you and it's not going to make things any better." 

"I wish I had died in the war," Heero seethed, and he felt his eyes grow hot and wet with tears. "I wish I had stabbed myself on that hill! I'm a monster," he turned away, images flashing through his head. 

He could see it so clearly now. The jealousy in his heart when he recognized Damion's horse. He had reacted without thinking. He wanted to land the first punch. Damion had fought well, and it made him feel better for awhile, until words were spoken. Damion had said he only wanted to sleep with Relena, and for a second, Heero saw truth in it. He saw why everyone would think that. The way he behaved, his fevered head. He remembered how he had thought of her recently, how he felt when he was around her. When he thought of himself with her, he forgot the girl that risked so much for him, and the realization made him sick. It wasn't true, he had said it was not. He knew there was so much more to it, that the love he had for her was real, but the way he had acted lately was not entirely true to that pure feeling, and the thought that Damion was right, that he had won, enraged him to madness. He hadn't known he was stabbing him until he felt the blood running down his hand and looked into his eyes. 

Relena had every reason to hate him now. But the way she looked in the rain, so desperate, so bold. He thought he was going to melt into her eyes the way she looked at him. She made him forget what he had just done. He had moved close to her before he knew it. When he touched her face, there were sparks in his fingers and the blue mist in her eyes cooled his fevered head. But the truth shattered everything. He had just stabbed an innocent man. And Relena hadn't heard him pronounce his love for her. It had taken so much courage and she hadn't heard, but now that he thought about it, he was almost glad. She might have hated him more, if she had heard those words from him right after what he had just done, as if saying them, or even feeling them, made it okay. 

"Heero," Duo said haltingly. "_Do_ you love Relena? You said you did last night." 

Heero felt numb. It was so simple. "I am a weapon," he said coldly, and felt his eyes go dry. "A gun. A sword. These things do not have hearts with which to love, and they can be loved in return only by mistake." 

He rose from the couch and stood up, crossing the room unsteadily. 

"Heero," Duo began. 

"No," Heero said. "If I loved her last night, I must stop now. I have strayed from my true nature. I've been...pathetically indulgent, and I'm sorry. Where is my gun?" 

"What do you need one for?" Duo asked wearily. 

"I'm going to discover the cause of a rebellion in Taravren," Heero said coldly. "And then I'm going to stop it. It's the least I can do to make up for my mistake. Do you want to help?" 

Duo nodded. "We should get Trowa and Quatre too." 

Heero nodded and walked upstairs to find a shower and a change of clothes. He felt more himself already. All he had to do was forget her. That would make things right. 

***** 

Dorothy leaned over the balcony, watching Miss Relena's quarters. She had been sitting here last night when the most curious thing happened. She'd seen Prince Damion Ravineere ride in and not come back out...all night. Very peculiar indeed. She wondered what it meant exactly, but even this much would start a very believable rumor. She just had to whisper it in the right ears. 

"No, Clara," Dorothy said into the phone, "I don't think you have anything more to worry about. I believe I have the solution for both of us." 

She smiled as she hung up. It was such a pretty tangle, but she and Clara had taught each other much when Clara came to stay with her family for so many years when they were children. 

Dorothy rested her chin in her gloved hand. "Oh, Heero," she said. "You used to be so strong, so attractive. And you must be that way again before I will have you, if only for a little while." 

She smiled and withdrew from the balcony, drawing the white curtains. It was quite the problem. Clara wanted Relena out of Damion's way and Dorothy wanted Relena out of Heero's. And yet she had no intention of hurting Miss Relena herself. She also wanted everything Clara had promised if she succeeded, and that meant catering to Clara Veron's desire as well. 

But this way, it would be absolutely perfect.   
  


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	8. Chapter 8

Heart of the Sword 

Chapter 8 

by Zapenstap 

  
  
  
  


"Heero," Duo complained. "We've been here almost three weeks. What exactly are you looking for?" 

Heero said nothing, turning away from Duo and walking back down the dock. 

The sea breeze cooled his face and blew his short-sleeved, yellow shirt in ripples across his skin. It was early morning in Taravren, a beautiful blue morning. Seagulls cried as they winged through the sky and waddled across the streets, picking at the scraps of fish and other crumbs that had fallen in the dirt during the day. Just beyond the docks, away from the sea, a throng of humanity milled about, shouting, chatting, going about their business as truckloads of goods were brought in from the ships at Port and the inventory taken. 

His sources indicated that weapons had been smuggled in through this area and stored in a warehouse on the curve of the bay. Duo and Heero had already infiltrated it last week and found it completely abandoned, empty of all stores. Whatever used to be there was gone now. 

"You know the Preventors are working on this, right?" Duo said in his usual suave and cocky tones. "We'd do better to go back to Cinq then stand around here waiting for something to happen." 

Back to Cinq. 

Heero sat on the side of the dock and swung his legs over the edge. Quatre and Trowa had decided after one week that it would serve better for them to keep up with Preventor intel than stay in Taravren. But Heero didn't want to go back to Cinq. Out here his head was cool, his thoughts clear, his body responding normally to all his wishes. In Cinq he was distracted, almost beyond functioning. Because Cinq was where Relena was. She had his heart, what she had restored of it, and he had realized he was better off without one. But it only worked when he was elsewhere. Everything was so much simpler this way. When he was not near her, thoughts of her did not consume him. They were idle, far away, and though they still filled his head every waking hour, they were not flamed to desire, to passion, to desperation, and he could do without those things. He knew where they had gotten him before. Besides, she was Damion's girlfriend. 

"Forget it," Heero said. 

Damion had everything. He was a prince. He walked into a room and heads turned. He was good looking. He could fight, ride, was trained in a hundred other things, and he had confidence. He had Relena. Had Heero stabbed him on accident, upset with himself, or to level the playing field? Something in Heero's eyes must have alerted Duo to his thoughts. 

"Come on, Heero," Duo urged, sitting beside him. "Damion's totally recovered. You weren't trying to kill him or he'd be dead. Everybody knows that! Surely Relena will forgive you eventually, but not if you don't try." 

"She doesn't want to see me again," Heero said. "And why should she?" 

"Oh, come on!" Duo scoffed. "She said that in a fit of rage. Buy her some flowers and a card or something and she'll come around. She probably misses you." 

Heero's hands clutched into fists. Sweat beaded on his brow with the images. "And then what, Duo?" he said quietly. "Then what?" 

Heero did not speak the words, but Duo's optimistic expression fell as Heero looked at him with piercing eyes. He understood. Then what? Would she fly into his arms and spout words of forgiveness between kisses if he repeated those words on the hill? Of course not. She was with Damion. She wouldn't even be able to accept any flowers, and how could she possibly react to Heero if he did return? Were they supposed to pretend to be just friends while he watched her pursue a courtship with someone else? It would drive him mad. And he could not court her fairly now, not after what he had done. And she could not just drop Damion with any fairness to him. By now they might be... he didn't pursue that thought. 

"Right," Duo said wearily, crestfallen. He ran a hand over his head. "Well, I guess it's back to work then." 

"It's what I'm good at," Heero agreed, and looked out over the ocean, heard the gulls crying. He was beginning to love the sea. 

"You're the best," Duo sighed, and then added, "second best." 

Heero chuckled. 

"Hey!" Duo said brightly. "That's the first time I've made you smile in... ever I think." He laid back and put his hands behind his head. "Ah, _yeah_, I'm starting to rub off on you. Pretty soon you'll be telling jokes and singing songs in bars." 

"Don't hold your breath," Heero said, and got up. 

"Where're you goin'?" Duo asked, scrambling to his feet. 

"Back to work," Heero said darkly. He needed to do something. 

"We're not even getting paid for this," Duo muttered, stamping his feet in his shoes, but he followed. 

What they had uncovered so far was enough to know there was definitely a problem but not enough to do anything about it. There were lots of rumors, mostly about Royalty and the Presidency and if the two should be connected. What Heero understood most about Taravren was that it was still very traditional. Jacob Ravineere might be called President, but he was still a King to the eyes of most of the people who lived in his lands, and he and his family were well-liked. There was still a royal guard, now called a secret service, and there was still a palace and servants and courtiers and no one seemed interested in having any of that changed too fast. The President's senate was made up of members of the Romafeller Foundation, Dukes and Marquis and Barons and everyone who had been the Royal Council before Relena's decree. Most everyone was satisfied with this. 

But obviously some were not. 

There had been arson, civil disobedience, graffiti and protest demonstrations held throughout the city of late. And weapons were being shipped secretly. Many civilians had been sent to jail for disturbing the peace, but they were never held long and no one talked. After seeing it, Heero understood why Damion was sent to Cinq. It didn't feel like the regular sort of rioting. It felt organized, sinister; someone was behind it. 

But there was nothing to trace. No correspondence was made over the internet that Heero could find. No documents had been left carelessly unguarded. It was almost as if someone, or a group of people, were handling the matter personally, distributing commands face to face. If so, it had to be someone with much at their disposal, but that hardly narrowed the choices. And for the life of him, he could not figure out a motive. The whole business felt like something ready to explode, something waiting for the order to be given. Heero had to prevent that order, at whatever cost. But it would help a lot if he knew who was supposed to give it. 

Duo's cell phone rang. 

"Answer it," Heero said sharply. 

"Chill out," Duo said, lifting the phone from his pocket. "Duo Maxwell speaking," he said casually into the receiver. "Oh, yeah, hey." He paused, listening. "Yeah," Duo said after several moments, glancing sideways at Heero. "Well _I_ will," he said again. "No, no problem. Yeah. Yeah. Bye." He ended the call and turned to Heero. "That was Wufei. Preventors have something on this Taravren situation and they want us to come down to Cinq for a briefing in three hours." He paused. "You don't have to even _look_ at Relena, you know. Are you game?" 

Could she be avoided? Did he want to avoid her? Didn't matter. There was a mission. Heero stared at him with a level, unblinking gaze. "We'll have to take Zero," he said. "There's no time to get Deathscythe." 

Duo shrugged. "If this is as serious as I think it is, we'll be back here soon anyway," he said seriously. 

Heero nodded and turned away. He felt more himself these last few weeks than he had in a long time, but she was still in his head. 

***** 

Relena laughed as Damion grabbed her for a kiss on his way out. She handed him his coat and walked with him to the gates, chatting about everything and nothing. 

"You've been here three weeks," she said. "Is that allowed?" 

He smiled at her, pausing at the entrance. "I'm cleared for the time being, but I will have to go eventually." 

She bit her lip and lingered in the walkway. "Me too," she said. "I've been making everyone come to me lately. Will I see you later today?" 

"I think so," he said, leaning in to kiss her again. "I received a message from Farnworth, but it shouldn't take all day to read." 

"Who's Farnworth?" she asked as he held her. 

"He used to be Captain of the Royal Guards. Now he's Head of Intel for my family," he said, holding her hands. 

"Ah. Same job, different name. Do you think this is important then?" 

"I don't know," Damion said. "Very well could be. I'll let you know when I get back." He released her hands reluctantly, caressing the length of her fingers, and walked out, glancing over his shoulder as she ducked back behind the gate. 

She wandered out into the garden and sat on a bench with a book on her lap, but she did not open it. Instead she stared at nothing, mesmerized by the colors of birds, flowers and butterflies as her thoughts drifted inward. She didn't want to think too hard. It only confused her more, but even when things with Damion seemed so perfect, Heero was there. He wouldn't go away. It apparently didn't matter what he did or to who, or even if he was physically present, he was always in her head. She had conceded to herself after Damion healed that she still loved Heero, but with a past-remeberance love that would fizzle out and die before long, which seemed likely since he hadn't come back and wasn't likely too. He had changed in some way, so perhaps their permanent separation was for the best, but there would always be a part of her that still loved him, even if she married someone else she loved more deeply and raised a family. It was just the way it was. 

Suddenly, Relena noticed there was a woman in a suit standing before her. Relena frowned, blinking in the sunlight as she raised her eyes to the stranger in some confusion. "Yes? Can I help you?" 

"Miss Relena Darilan," the girl said brightly. "Can you elaborate your relationship with Prince Damion Ravineere?" 

Relena blinked. A reporter? There had been a few previous inquiries, but nothing so aggressive. "I'm seeing him," she said slowly, wearily. That was not news, and there was nothing more to it. "Why?" 

The girl smiled at her. "Can you elaborate your physical relationship with Prince Damion Ravineere?" 

"That's a highly personal question," Relena said in some controlled outrage, setting her book beside and rising. 

The girl looked nervous, but she didn't budge. "Several reliable sources have indicated that you and the Prince have engaged in highly sexual behavior the first week of you acquaintance. Can you elaborate on this development?" 

Relena stared in shock. "No," she said breathlessly. "That's not true at all. Who has been saying such things?" 

"But you are seeing him?" the girl pressed. 

Relena only stared at her for several moments. "Damion and I have done nothing improper," Relena said firmly. "I have only been with him for a few weeks." 

"But he did stay several nights in your home?" 

Relena swallowed. "Yes, but that..." she floundered. "Nothing of the kind you are implying has happened," she finished breathlessly. "Please _leave_." 

The girl smirked. "Thank you for your time, Vice Foreign Minister." 

Relena left the garden on shaky legs. Who would have spread such a rumor, and why? She went back to the Cinq Castle in a flutter of worry. It wasn't long before she discovered that the rumor had already spread far and wide. Her legs almost gave way as Terese accosted her in the hall with a stack of magazines, her face flushed with worry and stress. Relena lifted several tabloids with shaky fingers, and even a few respected magazines. The papers would be next! True or not, a rumor whispered in enough ears would be believed as truth. And her denying it would only make her look like a liar. 

She ran to her office and locked the door, unable to breathe. This would be detrimental to both Damion and herself! Everyone would talk about it. Her reputation and his would be sabotaged. And they had done noting! But how could they be believed without revealing that Heero Yuy, Gundam Pilot 01 and hero of the Universe, had stabbed Prince Damion Ravineere over a matter of jealousy? Which was the worse scandal? 

Relena choked, suffocating her cries by pressing a hand to her mouth. She gulped and coughed, tears streaming from her eyes as she sank against her door. Heero would hear about it. She sobbed, not sure why. What would he believe? Would he believe Damion had stayed at her house to protect the man who stabbed him as well as himself? Would he think that far at all, or would he believe the rumors? She hiccupped, her eyes red and hot with steaming tears, her cheeks dry and sticky from their salt, but she could not stop crying. She wanted him to hold her and believe her, but that could not be. 

If she revealed the truth, Damion and Heero would both be sacrificed. If she let the lies prevail, everyone would think her a whore. Heero would hate her either way. 

"Relena!" A door slammed. 

She jerked, rising. Damion's voice, anxious and angry in tone. He hadn't been gone long at all, barely enough time to read a letter, but he was back now. She choked, and called out. "In my office!" 

She unlocked the door just before he burst in. His face was contorted with rage, not with her, but general fury. Her own face was red and tear-streaked, and when she saw him, the tears began to flow again. He stared her, the anger in his eyes dwindling in confusion. "What?" he asked. 

She handed him one of the tabloids she had brought with her and thrown on the floor. "I didn't know," she gasped, choking. "I don't know what to do." 

He scanned the article patiently and then swore, tossing it aside. "I'm being set up," he said, crossing the room and looking out the window.. 

She frowned, her tears drying in an instant. Whatever was bothering him was not the same thing that was bothering her. "What else has happened?" she demanded. He didn't answer. "Damion? Damion!" 

He turned. "I need to return home," he said. "Immediately." 

She stared. "Why?" 

"I'm being accused of treason in my own country, only whispers, but they will grow. My father is livid and Farnworth has sent for me. There is more implied than was written into words. I suspect whoever has set me up has made a demand. I have to return." 

Relena swallowed. "You can't just go, Damion. You might be a target for assassination! Your family might be under arrest, or arrest you! You don't know the situation. Don't go without protection!" 

"I won't," he said softly. 

"Let me go with you," Relena pleaded, grabbing his arm. He stared at her. 

"No. Out of the question. You'd be a liability. I'd put you in danger." 

"I don't care," she said. "I've been in it before. I don't care if I lose my life. Whoever has done this has conspired against me too, but I am still respected. I may be a benefit to you. Please let me come." Her eyes were like blue steel. 

He stared at her. "You..." he began. "You're really not afraid." He stared at her again, and there seemed to be questions in his mind, as if he was seeing something he didn't understand, or hadn't expected. "And I don't think I can stop you anyway," he muttered. 

"I would follow you," she said softly. 

He blinked and touched her face. "Get whatever you need. We leave in an hour." 

***** 

The Preventors and the Gundam Pilots were all gathered when Heero and Duo strode into the room right on time. 

"There's been a development," Sally Po said. "We have confirmation that Damion Ravineere will be publicly accused of High Treason in Taravren if the demands of a third party are not met within the next 24 hours. If such a threat is carried out to its full potential, his family will disinherit him and another will rule when his father's term has come to an end. There will be rioting, perhaps innocent deaths before it settles. Weapons have been disbursed in the city." 

"What are the demands?" Trowa asked dully, sitting with his arms crossed in a leather chair. 

"We don't know yet," Wufei said. "The third party has remained anonymous and has demanded Ravineere's presence personally to lay out the terms. He was sent for by his Royal Guard. His plane leaves within the hour." 

"We're going to back him up then," Trowa guessed. "Escort him safely to his kingdom and unravel this conspiracy against him." 

"Unless it's true and he's in conspiracy with this third party," Duo muttered, throwing himself in a chair. 

"He's not," Heero said. "He wouldn't do that." 

Quatre and Duo stared at him in surprise. Heero ignored them. It didn't matter if he was defending Damion. He no longer felt anything toward him, and this was a mission. 

"We don't believe so either," Sally said. "But be that as it may, he needs a bodyguard, at least to get him to the palace and probably for some time afterward until this is straightened out." 

"I'll do it," Heero said. 

Duo's jaw dropped open. Quatre stared. Everyone else shifted uncomfortably, but Sally smiled. "I was hoping you would, Heero," she said. "Because you're the best." 

"Heero," Duo said shakily. "Maybe this isn't the best idea. I mean..." 

"I want to," Heero confirmed, staring at Duo with eyes like nails. Duo swallowed. Heero said nothing for several moments. "And I want the the gundams to back us up. There might be trouble." 

***** 

Clara Veron paced the velvet carpet of her rooms in Taravren on bare feet, satin swishing across her legs as she held the phone to her ear. 

"I am aware of your interest in Heero Yuy," Clara said fiercely. "This better not be a ploy to keep Damion with Relena. That will destroy what I've..." 

"Of course it is," Dorothy murmured on the other end of the line. "But it will suit your purpose and mine. Think about it: What will Daddy say?" 

Clara clenched her hands into fists. "I've already considered that, but it would be cleaner if Relena were with someone else and unobtainable. Now I have to deal with variables." 

"Well it's too late," Dorothy said harshly. "Heero will not want her back when he hears the rumors. First the competition and now betrayal. Heero has been denied and rejected in every way. I have seen to my own success without compromising yours. You must deal with your own end as you can. You are resourceful." 

"I don't care for your tone," Clara said darkly. "And I _will_ win this time." 

"I always assumed you would," Dorothy replied snidely, and hung up. 

Clara set the phone on the windowsill with a small smile. 

_You are not half so clever as you think you are_,_ Miss Catalonia_,_ and I am more ruthless._

* * *

  
  


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	9. Chapter 9

Heart of the Sword 

Chapter 9 

by Zapenstap 

  
  
  
  


Relena squeezed Damion's hand for luck when their plane landed in the Taravren international airport. It was a short flight and they hadn't spoken much. Damion was obviously preoccupied. There was a far-off look in his eye and a seriousness about his face she was unaccustomed to seeing, but he seemed to take comfort in her presence and held her hand most of the way. He was dressed formally again in princely attire, as he had when they first met, and there was an air of grandness about him that meshed flawlessly with his expression. She felt plain beside him. Yet when they stood, he smiled at her and she saw the light of warmth flicker in his eyes as he took her hand and helped her to the door. 

Manny followed her and Damion silently, carrying Damion's briefcase and a bag of his few personal belongings. Terrese was with him. She had demanded to come with Relena to make the visit look more official, provided she stay out of the way. Relena suspected something more, but she didn't say anything. That Manny took a great deal of trouble helping Terrese out of the plane was confirmation enough. 

They descended the pull-away stairs to the airstrip in a stately manner. There were quite a few people waiting below, all of them expected. Damion immediately shook hands with an older man in a black suit Relena took to be Farnworth. He was not the only one present. There were other black suits and several people packing things up on carts and into trucks. Manny handed most of Damion's things to them. Relena took them to be the equivalent of palace servants. There were also a few Preventors, most of whom Relena did not know well, but Wufei was among them. Damion and Farnworth spoke in low tones and Relena caught Farnworth glancing at her with hard, unfriendly eyes. She blinked in confusion, wondering what he was thinking. 

In moments, Damion nodded and walked away from Farnworth, taking Relena's hand and pulling her close. 

"What was all that about?" she asked, tilting her head to look at him. 

"The people are moving. An attack on the palace or my person could happen at any time. We need to hurry." 

She nodded, unafraid. "He looked at me strangely," she added. 

"It's nothing to do with you personally," Damion assured her. "I need to see my father and Farnworth is concerned about my father's reaction to our relationship and your presence here. The trouble makes it worse." 

"Why?" she asked. "Your parents disapprove of me?" 

Damion just shook his head. "Not you, no," he said, and floundered uncertainly, looking lost and pained. 

"Never mind," Relena said, smiling, but with a note of determination in her tone as she straightened the collar on his coat. "Let's take care of what we came here to do. We need to get you safely to the palace, though I suspect even it will not be safe much longer." 

He nodded, his eyes a hard, steely gray as he turned his head and opened his mouth. 

A roar interrupted whatever he was about to say. A great wind surrounded them and Relena gasped, clutching Damion's coat as the Wing Zero alighted on the airstrip in the form of a plane and sped past them, slowing to a stop. "What in the..." she muttered breathlessly. "That's Heero." 

Damion's gray eyes caught fire and he took her arm, pulling her back, his other hand lightly touching her waist. She let him, but she couldn't tear her eyes away as Heero climbed out of the Wing Zero and dropped solidly to the pavement below. She hadn't seen him since that night... Her eyes drank in the sight of him as he rose and straightened, every curve of his body, every structure to his face, drinking it all in like water. She would have known him blindfolded, could have traced his face with her fingertips, could have drawn a picture. She re-memorized the strands of hair that shadowed his face and fell over his eyes. Oh, his eyes... Her heart felt like a lump of ice in her chest. They were as they had once been, cold, dark and possessing a hidden strength. Abruptly she realized he was staring at her too, or perhaps at her and Damion, but blankly, and a moment later he turned coolly away, as if the pair of them were nothing at all, and approached Wufei with the walk of a leopard. 

"He seems different," Damion said quietly behind her. 

Relena could not answer, but she nodded and clutched at Damion's hand. "That is how I remember him," she whispered. "What is he doing here?" 

Wufei began walking toward them, leaving Heero to linger behind. Heero wasn't even looking at them, but was scanning the airfield and the buildings in the distance with a hawkish intensity. 

"He's your bodyguard," Wufei informed Damion curtly. 

Damion and Relena stared at Wufei in an uncomprehending fashion. Relena felt Damion tense behind her and curled her fingers about the hand he had wrapped around her waist to calm him. 

Wufei was unmoved. "I know there are...difficulties between the two of you," he said dryly, eyeing Relena in an unflattering manner, "but even _I_ have to admit that Heero Yuy is the best. The city streets are dangerous, and growing more unpredictable the longer we stand here. Heero will get you through them. He is more dedicated to the mission than ever and he's never let any personal feelings stand in his way before. I've never seen him so focused; you should have nothing to worry about." 

Wufei turned away and began barking orders to the other Preventors. Guns were passed out and a wide circle of armed Preventors and Damion's own personal guard formed a circle about Damion and Relena. At the last minute, Manny slipped in with Terrese in tow. Heero was there too, though no one saw him enter, but he stood a ways from his charge, watching the front of the line, out of earshot. 

"He's different," Damion said under his breath. "Cold, they said. I think I see it now. Is he always like this on the job?" 

"Not just on the job," she said quietly. "All the time." So cold, as chill and uncaring as a winter storm, but it was only a front. She had pierced it once, or thought she had. She had seen kindness and care in him, wrapped in layers of dedication and poisoned by a total lack of a sense of self-worth. _Heero_, she cried in her heart, _you are more than missions. Why can't you just let yourself be loved?_

Maybe he had just come to realize that desire when she abandoned him for Damion. The thought was so sudden and so tragic she could not face it. But it would explain why he went so crazy. Did he love her, or think he did? No, no. She couldn't let herself think that way. She was caught, trapped in an accident of no one's making. And there did not appear to be any method of resolution. Either way, it seemed Heero had vanquished whatever had driven him so wild before. She had done the same. 

The procession began its careful march into the city. 

***** 

Damion watched Heero as wearily as he did the streets. He never glanced at Damion except to verify his position in the center of the circle, but if his eyes occasionally lingered over Relena, it was difficult to notice and there was absolutely no emotion on his face or lurking in his eyes. He held a gun in one hand as if it were an extension to his body, and the deadly grace with which he moved was intimidating. 

At first, people fled from the armed escort as they passed through the gates and down the street, but soon they began to gather until the sidewalks were filled and overflowing with bodies. There was a hum of muttering in the air, some of it angry, some of it frightened. Damion observed it all in bewilderment. He felt like he was walking in some foreign place. This was not the way he remembered this city or its people, so hostile, so dangerous, so furious. He realized that it was his responsibility and his alone to fix it. 

Abruptly, Heero crossed the space between Damion and himself and shoved Damion and Relena apart, pushing them to either side of the armed circle. There was a ring of shouts as Manny caught Damion and Wufei caught Relena as they stumbled. Damion regained his feet in a flash, furious. Even now he would!.... but his anger abated when he saw the slender bullet strike off the pavement with a soft _ping_... exactly where he had been standing. Heero twisted, arm and gun extended toward the roof of the building towering on their left. One shot, fired with a silencer, and there was a shout from above as a sharpshooter, an assassin, fell with a soft thump. 

Damion swallowed as Heero turned and met his eyes. Damion met him stare for stare and at length nodded his thanks. Neither said anything, but Heero ignored Damion's gesture and turned away again, once more sweeping the crowd with hard, cold eyes. 

Damion shivered as the party resumed its pace. This was how Relena remembered Heero Yuy? This was how he was most of the time? It was almost unbelievable. Damion traced his own memories. He had met Heero in the hills, horseback riding. He had seen the determination, the strength he saw now, but he had seen his reaction to Relena as well, the emotion, the jealousy. He remembered the fight on the hilltop, Heero's wild, fevered eyes, the pain and the rage and the lust evident there. Remembering that, he was afraid to let Heero anywhere near Relena, but he wondered what had sparked such a dramatic show for a few short days, such passion and fury, if this clear coldness was all that remained. 

_"I _burn_ for her!"_

_"you... only want to sleep with her."_

_"That's not true."_

It had been said in barely a whisper, but what had been in the eyes before the rage and the knife? Damion couldn't remember. Looking at Heero now, face blank as a brick wall, eyes intent on the situation but ignoring the people, he found himself doubting that fight on the hill had even happened. He even had the scar to prove it. Whatever had been in Heero's eyes and heart during that storm was gone now, vanished like it had never been. 

_"I love her!"_

Damion's head ached. Had someone said that? Damion himself hadn't, not then. At the time, it seemed to Damion that anyone with the lust he saw in Heero might swear love in delusion, but seeing Heero now, Damion was unsure it had been said at all. Heero did not look like one easily deluded, nor the type that would say anything of the sort so casually. Damion didn't want the think about it. For better or worse, Relena was his, and he loved her, he was sure of it. He knew he wanted to be with her, and there was no reason why that opportunity should be denied him because of someone on the outside. Besides, Heero did not even appear human now, much less a man with a claim to love. 

The procession began to pick up speed as more angry people filled the streets. It was turning into a regular mob, mindless, menacing, and full of rage. Damion's party began running lightly, and he prayed no one would get shot before they came to the safety of the palace gates, if the palace was safe at all. Not long ago, these he would have considered his people, if they still were not, and he did not want to be responsible for their deaths. And he would be responsible, simply for being a prince, whether it was his fault or not. 

The gates loomed above them up the streets, but Damion's smile of relief fell as a they got closer. Of course the way had been blocked! He could see his own people behind the gates, lines of men with rifles and helmets, but they dared not shoot at the crowd. And yet the crowd would not budge, and they could not get passed. 

"Another entrance?" Relena suggested. 

"There is," Farnworth said, "on the other side, but it can only be opened from the inside, and only by three levers pulled simultaneously from different locations. Those levers are always guarded." 

"But won't they let _us_ in?" Manny said, sweat beading on his brow. "There are cameras!" 

"They're no longer our guards," Farnworth said. "Some of our people have turned over to the other party for higher pay. Most of the palace is still in our control, but those three rooms are not. If Damion doesn't meet with the third party and a compromise of some kind achieved, the gates will be opened to the crowd and the palace overrun. There will be a revolution." 

"But how am I to compromise if they don't let me in?" Damion muttered. "And who is this third party?" 

"You need to speak with your father if you have not already guessed," Farnworth replied. "If you go to the gates and _beg_ to be let in, I'm sure you will be admitted," he added wryly. 

Damion shook his head. He couldn't do that. He didn't come here to sue for mercy or plead away his kingdom with pirates. He did not intend to beg to be let into his own home. The cameras would catch that, and he would lose face to the entire world. 

"I'll take care of it," Damion heard Heero whisper suddenly, but when he turned, Heero was gone. 

Damion swore under his breath. "It does no good standing here," he said loud enough for everyone to hear. "We'll go to the other entrance, but I have no intention of begging." 

It seemed he had to depend on Heero Yuy. 

***** 

Heero slipped out through the circle by Wufei. 

"By the garden wall," Wufei murmured without turning his head as the circle closed again behind him. 

Heero wove his way through the crowd, ignoring their mutterings. Most of them were not against Damion or the royal family specifically, but they gathered anyway, for other grievances, real or imagined. Mobs of any kind had a way of getting out of control, and there were enough instigators in this one to inspire the rest to tear down the palace without cause. 

Trowa was waiting by the garden wall. "It's climbable," he said stoically. "You were right." 

Heero said nothing to that. "The others are already inside?" 

"Yes. They'll wait for you to contact them. The lever rooms have intercoms for communication just like said." 

Heero nodded. He had thought they would. "You remember what to do?" 

"Of course," Trowa said. "I'll be with Damion and the others on time." 

Heero nodded and latched his fingers onto the wall. There were grooves in the stone, just deep enough to provide fingerholds. He scrambled up the side and swung over the top. Trowa saluted him from below and strode off into the crowd as Heero dropped to the inside and landed in a crouch. 

Drawing his gun, he bolted for the wall, running low to the ground. At the corner, he paused, listening for noises. He caught them, two guards, speaking quietly. It didn't matter if they were on Damion's side or not. He slid down against the wall and lifted a small pebble by his shoe. He tossed it into the wall behind him. The noises around the corner stopped and he heard the sound of boots and guns being drawn. The first guard to round the corner fell to a swift blow in the head, the handle of Heero's gun. Heero spun the weapon in his hand as the other guard shouted in surprise as his fellow guardsman fell, coming to check it out. The second guard came face to face with the barrel of Heero's gun inches in front of his face. 

"Is the door open?" Heero asked. 

The guard swallowed, sweat beading on his face. "Yes," he said. "Please don't..." 

Heero free hand snaked up to the guard's neck and applied sudden press. He crumpled, slumping over his comrade. Heero pulled them both up beside the wall, stepped over them and rounded the corner. The door was open. He went in. 

Once inside, the door shut softly behind him, Heero made his way north, working from memory. He had been here before with Duo, Quatre and Trowa two weeks ago. He had insisted on infiltrating the palace. The others had not thought it necessary, but he was glad now that he had pushed it. 

He hid in the shadows and in adjacent rooms as people passed, mostly servants and a few guards, but there were courtiers too, and members of the senate. He wasn't sure which were enemies, but it didn't matter. He wasn't here to do violence. Relena... _no, none of that_. Images of her flashed in his head, snapshots of her arms, her hair, her face, but he suppressed them all and continued north, slinking through the halls, carefully rounding the corners. He had heard rumors in Newport that she and Damion had.._.don't think! _ Too late. He wanted her, even still, more than life itself. But no matter; there was a mission. It might have been faster to steal a uniform and walk casually, but with the way things were, he didn't have the time, and he might be commanded or his loyalties questioned. 

At length he came to the northern lever room. He withdrew the tranquilizer gun from his jacket and knocked on the door. It opened and Heero walked in. The man who opened it attempted to grab him, but Heero shot him in the leg as he passed and the man slid to the floor like his bones were made of jelly. There were another two men in the room, and two more darts. Both went down with darts in their necks as soon as they turned to see what was happening. 

Heero stepped over the first man and approached the screen. He scanned the control panel with his eyes until he found the transmitter to rooms A and C. He activated it and two vidscreens opened before him. 

"Yo, Heero," Duo waved, lounging in the chair in room A. "You ready?" 

"Hey, Heero," Quatre said with a smile. 

Heero looked at his watch. "You remember what to do next?" 

Duo shrugged, Quatre nodded. 

"In thirty seconds," Heero said. "Trowa should be there by now." 

***** 

Damion waited at the gate, watching the vidscreen uncertainly. There were guards on the other side, on his side, but though they tried opening the gate manually, they did so to no avail. 

"Heero won't fail," Relena said with a smile, putting a hand on his arm. "Relax. This will be over soon." Damion felt uneasy, and something in his eyes must have communicated his thoughts. "I'm _yours_," she said soothingly. He felt a spring of love well up in his heart for her, surprising him. He wanted to kiss her, but felt that would be inappropriate. She seemed to see it in his eyes and they stared at one another in silence. Was he in love with this girl? He thought he might be. No, he knew it. The thought made him smile a little foolishly. 

Abruptly, there was a stranger standing beside them. "In thirty seconds," the man said in a bleak tone. "The gates will open for a window of twelve seconds and then swing shut again." 

Damion stared at him for a moment but wasted no time. "Stand back!" he said to the guards trying to open the gates from the other side. "Prepare to enter the palace grounds!" he said to his own party. Heads turned, but no one questioned. Farnworth gestured and the elite of his command formed a three-man barrier tightly around Damion, Relena, Manny and Terrese. Wufei and the stranger hung back, conversing quietly. Damion shook his head. Of course, another gundam pilot. They were probably all here. A few seconds later, they left the group. Damion blinked in wonder, but he didn't worry about them. 

The vidscreen flickered and Heero's face appeared above the gate. "Proceed," he said, and the image vanished. 

The gates opened, swinging inward. Damion and his party strode in, the gates shutting almost directly on their heels. "Farnworth," Damion said quietly. "Take Vice Foreign Minister Relena Darilan and her secretary to a safe location." Relena opened her mouth, but whatever she was about to say died on her lips as he looked at her. "Manny," Damion continued. "Look out for them both." He gestured to the elite of his personal guard. "The rest of you, accompany me to the council room. I must speak with my father immediately." 

He began walking and the group immediately split up. Farnworth took the others to the door on the side where Damion usually entered after riding in the mornings. Damion strode straight to the main entrance. The doors were flung open wide for him. The guards bowed. He entered his own home with an armed escort, boots passing from concrete to marble flooring and then to velvet carpeting. 

"Damion!" Clara's voice came anxiously from the lobby. She lifted heavy maroon-coored velvet skirts and ran toward him. 

"I am to see my father, Clara," he said dismissively without slowing. "I will speak with you shortly." 

She slowed to a stop, deflated and angry as he passed her by, entering the council room where he knew his parents would be waiting in all their formality. The guards opened the double doors for him. His personal bodyguard stopped in the hall. He alone was let inside. 

Damion stood alone in the vast grandness of the council room, what used to be called and still was the throne room. Pictures of kings past ringed the high walls. Heavy velvet draperies cascaded to the floor. It was a room designed to make one feel small and insignificant, but Damion was prince here. His father and mother sat, arrayed in their most formal and elegant clothing. His mother wore a dress the color of gold, but its warm glimmer did not touch her eyes. Her face was stern as she looked at him. His father's face was graver. 

They were angry. Damion swallowed and knelt on one knee, pressing one fist to the floor. 

"Rise," his father said. Damion rose and lifted his head to meet his father's eyes. 

"Welcome home, son," Jacob Ravineere said softly. "I'm glad you are safe." 

***** 

Relena paced the floors in what appeared to be a dining hall uneasily. She felt a tenseness all about her, and new the palace wasn't safe, not at all. Farnworth and the guards had left her, Terrese and Manny alone in this room when an urgent call came from the front gate. Civilians were breaking down the gates. There was only one door and no windows to the dining hall, so it was easily defensible from the outside, but she felt nervous. There were only a few guards protecting them now, and though she could see no reason why anyone would be after them, she felt insecure. 

The thought made her start in surprise. Since when had she become so concerned about her own safety? She should be doing something, not waiting patiently here for someone to come fetch her. What had happened to all her inner strength? 

The door opened and she turned. 

"Clara," Manny said from beside her, Terrese just behind him. "What are you doing here?" 

The woman who entered was stunningly beautiful. Her eyes were as dark as her hair and set in a flawless, heart-shaped face. She lowered long, black lashes demurely and curtseyed. "Waiting for Damion," she said, "much as yourselves." 

Relena fidgeted. She had seen the love in Damion's eyes at the gates. She had almost melted into them the emotion was so strong, so obvious. Was it this that had stolen her strength? Where was Heero? The thought made her angry. It was horrible that she could think so beautifully of Damion loving her and then wonder about Heero. She didn't know who she loved. She felt wretched. 

"Do you know what's going on?" Terrese demanded of Clara. 

Clara rose straight-backed and did not respond, but gave at Relena with a long, weighing look. "You are Relena Darilan?" she asked simply. 

Relena frowned. "I am." 

"I have heard you are seeing Damion," she said, glancing at the ground. Every move she made was graceful, soft. 

"Yes," Relena confirmed, feeling a sensation like spiders crawling up her spine. 

Clara nodded thoughtfully. "I have known Damion all my life," she said. "We grew up together. I have always loved him. When we were young, I was promised to him, informally, but it was important to me." She folded her hands in front of her. "Those promises are no longer applicable since Taravren ceased to be an official nation. I have not decided whether or not to be angry at you." 

Relena felt pity, but also coldness. This woman's tone was cold. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't know." 

Clara smiled. "It doesn't matter anyway. It is his promise to keep, not yours, and I have seen to it that he will keep it." 

Sudden realization dawned on Relena. "You couldn't possibly...!" she began in outrage, but before she could continue, the door opened again. 

"Be careful, Relena," Heero said, striding into the room with a gun in hand. Relena swallowed as her pulse began to race. 

A second later a half dozen men with guns came in on his heels, weapons aimed at the gundam pilot, eyes unblinking. 

Clara did not even turn around. "Welcome, Heero Yuy," she said. "You can put your gun away. I mean Relena no harm. And provided you don't interfere..." she turned her head to look at him, a devilish light in her eyes, "you can have her in exchange for Damion's life, which belongs to me."   


* * *

It has come to my attention that I've spelled Terrese's name several different ways throughout this fic. Sorry. Also, the promise Clara speaks of does not make Damion a liar for saying there was nothing between them. It was just a formality from a long time ago. 

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	10. Chapter 10

Heart of the Sword 

Chapter 10 

by Zapenstap 

  
  
  


Damion faced his parents wearily, unsure what they wanted to hear from him and unsure what he wanted to ask. 

"I wish we could provide a better welcome," his mother said sadly. "But some things must come first. The situation is precarious." 

Damion raised his head, lifting his chin and meeting his father's eyes. "You've summoned me here," he said gravely. "There's rebellion in the streets, and you sit here in this room with guards on the doors and do nothing." He was not accusing, but he could feel the tension in the room, the peculiar sensation running beneath his skin, and the way the eyes of his father bored into him. "You want me to handle this, don't you? Why?" 

"Because you are the heart of the problem," his father said tersely. "Have you not yet guessed the situation?" 

"I have done everything you have asked," Damion said between clenched teeth. "I went to Cinq. I stood before the dignitaries. I have been working day and night with the Preventors, explaining to them everything they need to know about Taravren, about its people, its practices. I have been deciphering intel, contacting undercover agents, sifting through piles of information about this rebellion, uncovering leads, and acting upon them." 

"And?" his father prompted. 

"The names of the international backers have been uncovered and compromised. The arms dealers have been taken out of the game, arrested. I learned that the turmoil in the city was still active, but aside from knowing it had to be someone in the Royal Council, err... the Senate, keeping things boiling, I did not know who to blame. And there has been little news from you. I assumed I was kept out of the city for my own safety, because I was a target." 

"Yes," his father replied. "You were and are the target. But if you want to succeed me and save this country, you must think clearer and quicker," he said. 

Damion scrubbed a hand through his hair. "A few days would have been enough to give the Preventors the intel they needed and the rest I could have done from home, yet I was not called back. It has to be more than keeping me safe. I was just as endangered, if not more, on my own in Cinq." 

"You had other reasons for remaining," his mother said, and he heard a bite in her voice that he had not expected. 

Damion blinked, frowing. "What do you mean?" 

"Relena Darilan, of course," his mother said. "It is not news." 

"I know," he said, confused and a little irritated. What were they accusing him of? They sounded so...reproachful. "What of it? You said I should socialize, meet people." His mother and father exchanged a look. He felt under attack. "For God's sake, mother, you implied I should start looking for a wife the day before I left!" 

"I thought your decision on such a course of action would be wiser," she said softly. 

It was like a blow to the head. Damion stared at her, not entirely comprehending. "Farnworth said you were angry," he breathed, trembling with sudden anger. "But you _do_ disapprove, don't you? How _could_ you?" His voice rose until he was nearly shouting. "What did you want? And why should I care how you feel about it, about her? I didn't know you would be so shallow that you would deny me love in exchange for political games!" 

"Damion," his mother said softly, "we love you and desire your happiness above all politics, but..." 

"Not in matters of love?" he said harshly, and wished he had not. His father's eyes were like steel. Damion should not have spoken to his mother this way. He should certainly not have raised his voice. He looked down, angry at himself for what he said and equally angry for being ashamed to say it. He couldn't believe this! Was love a dead concept for them? Did they expect him to believe it too? 

"It's not that," his mother said sadly. 

"You are not thinking foresightedly," his father informed him as his mother fell silent. Damion flinched under that stern tone. He was too old to be lectured, but nothing in his being gave him the strength to rebel against this man, his father and also a king. "Relena Darilan is an unsuitable match for you," Jacob Ravineere said simply, but sternly. "You should know that." 

That did it. Damion's head snapped up. He could feel his own eyes burning. "Unsuitable match?" he said harsly, angrily. "What kind of archaic talk is this? What do you care as long as I like her and she likes me? It's not even as if she were poor and stupid, but why should that matter anyway? What do you want? Relena's a princess! She used to be Queen of the World. What is unsuitable about her? How can you _say_ that?" 

His father shook his head. "You misunderstand. It is not her rank I am concerned with. She was a princess and a queen, but she has forsaken those titles with her name. They are irrelavent. I would rather you had chosen the poor girl you suggested, though that would be hard on you. But Relena Darilan? She is an international and space colonial delegate. She is a celebrity." 

An inkling of comprehension tickled his mind. Damion's mouth went dry. He knew that, but surely love... 

"Damion," his mother said soothingly, but forcefully, "what were you going to do with her?" 

"I don't know," he said hoarsely. "I love her. Isn't that enough?" 

"Not for a prince," his father said. "And she will not understand. When you take my place you will be a king in the eyes of these people. Taravren is old and rich in history and culture. Internationally we may accept being united as one World Nation, but this is still very much a monarchy. As long as it is ruled justly, it will remain so and be better for it. You know that perfectly well. When you take a wife, she will sit beside you as a Queen and the wellfare of _this_ nation, _this_ province, and _you_ personally must come first in all her thoughts. Do you think Relena could fulfill that role?" 

He didn't answer. 

"Then what? You just wanted to have a good time, take advantage of each other? You are a prince, Damion. You know who she is." 

"No," he gasped out, and felt cold and hot at the same time. "It is not like that!" 

"Then you are considering marrying her somewhere down the line?" his father pressed. 

He shifted. "I don't know," he said at last. "I just liked her and I wanted to..." 

"To fall in love?" his mother said quietly. There was sympathy in her face. He could see the care and concern and love for him in her eyes, but determination too. "Damion, you should know better." 

He gasped, feeling weak, felt tears swell up in his eyes, but above all he was angry and confused. "I don't deserve to fall in love?" he said plainly. "That is it, isn't it? If it is not politically convenient I might as well forget it? I must put Taravren before my own personal desires, act like a prince before a man?" 

"Yes," his father said. 

Damion felt like he had been shot. The mostly-healed wound in his side ached dully. There were tears on his cheeks. "And you?" he demanded of his father. "You loved my mother, didn't you? When you married her?" 

Silence. 

"Father?" Damion whispered breathlessly. Fear wormed in his gut. 

Damion's father spoke slowly. "No," he said. Damion almost fell over, even as his father continued. "I courted her for other reasons, liked her well enough, and grew to love her." His mother seemed entirely unaffected by this confession. But then, of course, she must have known. And it did not bother her. 

"No," Damion breathed. His bones felt like they were shattering. "No. Oh, _God_!" He could see himself, choosing a girl from a room full of them, courting her, marrying her, conceiving children, all in a fanfare of blandness and duty and friendship. "You would be less disapproving if I had sought a relationship only for physical satisfaction, wouldn't you?" he choked. "And then married any girl with aristocratic upbringing and Taravren ties?" 

"No to the first," his father said. "But yes to the second. I am proud of you and the way you have treated Relena. I just wish she were someone else. I don't want you to follow my path. I married in a different time, Damion. The world was different then. Taravren was different. And I was lucky. I wanted you, in _this_ time, to fall in love and be blessed with that, but I wanted you to be careful about it. Of all the women in the world, Relena is the most impossible to keep in your situation. I doubt not your judgement of her character, or that she is a wonderful and respectable person, but she is still a political celebrity. You are a prince. That gives you something in common, but it does not make you a good match. She belongs too much to everybody. You are confined to this one place." 

He felt numb, dry and dead. Those were all true things, but... Was he being too idealistic? "What would you have me do then?" he said darkly and dangerously. 

"You love her?" his mother asked. 

"Yes," he replied, tears choked in his throat as he lifted his head. 

"Love can make the impossible possible," his mother said. "I love your father. I knew I wanted to marry him the moment he laid eyes on me. It just took me awhile to get _him_ to see it, and longer to share the feeling." She smiled fondly. "You have perhaps made a careless choice," she continued. "But if your love is real and she loves you deeply enough, it could work. True love in these times for people like us is a rare thing, for anybody, but if you have found it and you believe in it, I would not dissuade you." 

He swallowed, feeling hope at last, salve over a wound. He closed his eyes, the tears drying. This was intolerable. He would certainly _not_ be dissuaded by these exaggerated fears! He loved Relena. That was all that mattered. 

"But have a care, Damion," his mother added. "Your father is right. She is of a different world, and may not understand. She would have to give up her career to be your wife, to live with you in this place," she looked around the hall, "and be content. It is much compensation, but for someone like her, it is a great loss too, and not an easy thing. And if it is not to be," and here her voice went a little chill, "you must forsake love and be a prince before a man." 

He swallowed again, but determination grew. He could see Relena, her face, her smile, the feel of her hands. He could be happy with her. He _could_ live out his life with her...couldn't he? "I need time to think," he said hoarsely. Or marry someone else, simply because he had to. Did love not exist in this world at all? Was it an imagined dream in his head, a fruitless ideal? He felt sick to his stomach. 

Did _she_ love _him_? Perhaps his parents were right and love was not meant for him, for princes and people of his sort, maybe not any sort. Maybe only blind fools ever really fell in love. Perhaps he was doomed to be alone in the better interest of others, as all people eventually were, and love was merely a mirage used to distort the thoughts of idiots into believing in something wonderful and profound, even if it was a lie. 

He wanted to cry. 

"Or marry Clara," his father said gruffly. "And be a prince now." 

Damion's head snapped up like a rocket. "What? Clara? What does she have to do with this?" 

"Everything," his father said. "Her price for saving this city is an engagement ring." 

Damion stared at him. "I...I don't understand you." 

But he did. He knew exactly what his father meant. The blows just kept on coming. 

Clara Veron was behind the rebellion? He had grown up with Clara. He remembered her as being haughty and overly determined as a child, and completely infatuated with him. She used to follow him around wherever he went and was always trying to get him to do silly things for her. Then he was sent away to live with another family and so was she. He returned first. When she came back, she had matured into a stunningly beautiful woman, with all the grace and charm of any princess, but she also returned spiteful and manipulative. He'd disliked her for years. And she knew it. She still followed him around, only now trying to manipulate him, seduce him, to coerce him into...something. A rose with many thorns. That's what he had told Manny. She started a rebellion to get him to marry her? _That_'_s_ what this was about? People might be dying in the streets! How could she be so bent on trying to marry a man, even a prince, who did not love her? But if love didn't really exist, what did it matter? She clearly understood his father more than he did. It was ambition that she knew. She knew how to play the game, and now she was playing him. 

"I can't believe this," he said. "Do you seriously expect me to give in to her demands and _marry_ her? I won't!" 

His father's eyes did not change. "I think it has progressed beyond any easy resolution. You can not agree to such terms and save face, but the city must be saved." 

"What am I supposed to do?" Damion demanded. "Why won't you help me?" It was not like his father to be this hard, this forceful. 

"We can not," his mother said, and he was startled to see tears in her eyes. "Clara has lost control. She is clever but she is young. She has had considerable backing from outside and in, but not all of her followers are as loyal as she believes. You have dealt with most of those, but some remain, and we know that many of our own staff has turned, though not who specifically. Clara has spread gold like water and can not contain her own manipulations. The mob outside is not of Clara's doing. It was supposed to be faked, but now it is real. The palace will soon be overrun, and there are weapons of war in the city. People have been personally appointed to rile up the people, to put weapons into their hands. There will be madness and much suffering before this is over, and we will be lucky if the palace is not overrun and we are all killed." 

"Our protection is guaranteed," Jacob said. "Your mother and I, because we are well known and my term will not last forever as it would have had I still been king, but we could not bargain your life. If Clara can not coerce you into marriage, she may try to have you killed. With the people maddened as they are, she will be able to claim your place when my term ends. But we know that guards in the palace who have given their alligience to Clara have been ordered to shoot either your mother or myself on site should be leave this room. You are allowed freedom only to bargain, but even should you come to an aggreement with Miss Veron, others may still decided your life is not worth keeping. Be careful." 

Damion could not comprehend this situation. Clara had grown ruthless. "Then stay here!" he cried. "Please! But again I ask you, what can I do?" 

"We don't know," his mother said, and a tear rolled down her cheek. "But be careful, my baby. I don't want to see you hurt. I will die if anything happens to you." 

Damion froze. Suddenly he knew exactly where Clara would have gone. This was not over yet. He turned toward the door, pieces of a plan forming in his mind. "Don't worry, mother," he muttered, "I have an excellent bodyguard." 

"Damion, what are you going to do?" his father demanded as he put a hand on the door. 

"I'll show you that I can be a prince," he said calmly to his father and mother both. "I have been selfish and foolish, but I know who and what I am, and I will prove it to you." 

The doors swung in on his heels as he strode from the throne room and into the growing chaos outside. The guards at the door leaped out of his way as he came through like fire in a brush field. He spared them not a glance. It didn't matter if they were loyal to his family or Clara; he paid them no mind. Whether they liked it or not, he was prince here. 

He made for the dining room, where he was sure Farnworth would have taken Clara. Most of the guards he had left were gone. He could hear shouting outside, and the sound of shots being fired. It made him angrier. 

"Stand aside," he commanded coldly, and stared them right in the eyes. 

He recognized some of their faces, people he had known since his childhood. They stared at him and at one another, and he was certain by their hesitation that he was no longer their master. They had sold out to Clara, or whoever supported her. Yet slowly they stepped aside and flung open the door. There was a new sort of respect in their eyes. 

"Clara!" Damion shouted as he strode in, and his voice boomed, echoing around the walls with a feel like thunder. The doors remained open. A row of guards stood before him, and there were those he had left behind, all loyal to Clara, but his eyes blazed, and they parted when he neared, murmuring amongst themselves. 

And she was there. Lovely as a dark rose, slender and supple, clothed in velvet. Her eyes shined as she turned her head to look at him, and a small secret smile danced upon her lips. "Damion," she murmured. "I am so glad that you could join us. Heero Yuy and I were just discussing you." She looked at Heero. "Take Relena Darilan and leave Damion with me," she commanded in a chill voice. 

Time seemed to slow. 

Damion glanced at Heero, standing between him and Clara. He had a gun in his hand, lowered to his side, like part of his body. Glints of gold flickered in his eyes from the light in the room as they stared at one another. Damion had been told that the eyes were the like windows to the soul, and perhaps for the first time, for an instant, he _saw_ Heero Yuy. What he saw there, in layers of complication, shocked him to his core, though it didn't show in his face. 

For a flash, a heartbeat, he saw _himself_ in Heero's eyes, reflected in their depths, shining through. He saw an uncanny strength in him, and a presence of control and determination of a prince from _any_ throne! But there the resemblance ended. Coldness enveloped Heero, a stilling frost like winter without spring, and deep within, hurt and self-resentment. He looked into Heero's eyes and saw pain. He saw the soul of a soldier, a weapon, and a deadly one. A weapon that hated itself for being a weapon. He saw the heart of a sword. Heero feared nothing, could do anything, because he didn't care enough about himself to worry about himself. He was a tool, a gamepiece, dependable, reliable, undefeatable, and nothing more. 

And then, for the briefest glimmer of an instant, Damion thought he saw something else. Heero's head turned ever so slowly, his gaze sweeping the room, and as his sight brushed across Relena, standing with a peculiar calm on her face, something seemed to click. His expression shifted. Kindness, concern, love welled up in the deepest corner of his eyes, a completeness and understanding entirely foreign to anything Damion had ever known. But those feelings hit that endless winter on the surface, that frozen lake of numbness, and died, swept away as if they didn't exist at all. 

But Damion was sure he had seen it, and was utterly bewildered. He glanced at Relena's face, into her eyes as she watched Heero's decision breathlessly. Something had passed between them. He could see in her eyes that she already knew exactly what decision Heero would make. 

"I'm sorry," Heero said darkly, and Damion swallowed. Heero's eyes swung to Clara. "But I just can't do that." 

Clara snarled, but in an instant her calm returned. "I find some compensation in the knowledge that Dorothy was wrong," she said. "Guards, seize him." 

Heero grappled with five guards as they came at him, and his eyes flashed dangerously, but they were many, expecting retaliation and soon overwhelmed him. Heero's gun dropped to the tiles and slid across the floor as he was kneed in the stomach and then kicked to the ground. One of the guards drew a knife and Heero stifled a cry. On his knees on the floor, he was kept still with the boot of one guard on his back, hands held behind him. But he lifted his head and glared at Clara with a look like death. 

Relena looked stricken. 

Clara was unperturbed. 

"What are you doing, Clara?" Damion said harshly in low, weary tones. "This is insane!" 

"I know," she said, folding her hands in front of her. "But there seemed to be no other way to get your attention." 

"You have it now," he said through clenched teeth. "What do you want?" 

"You know perfectly well," she replied. "I want what I was promised. A marriage. I want to be Queen of Taravren as is my right. I want to be your wife." 

"Clara, that's silly," he said. "You can not have my love that way." 

"Who said anything about love?" she replied casually, but her expression looked grieved. "I gave up on _that_ long ago. It does not really exist. There is only lust. Lust for power, lust for money, and the animal lust of desire." Her eyes smouldered when she looked at him, and a smile played on her lips. "These can be satisfied. Love? Love is a black pit of emptiness," she said bitterly. "Always yearning and never fulfilled. Perhaps it is pleasant enough at first, in the way daydreams are pleasant, but it dies quickly and is left hollow. It is you I want now," she said sadly. "Not your love. I will take what I can get. You know your choices are no better." 

He felt sick again. "Clara," he said angrily. "Don't do this. Not this way. You know I can not agree." 

"No, Damion," she said, and walked toward him until she stood right before his face, looking up into his eyes through black eyelashes. "I'm sure you will. Even now you know that it must be so." 

"You've changed," he said with regret. "When we were kids I disliked you in my pride and immaturity, but now I see you are truly hateful. What made you change this way?" 

"Life," she said without sorrow. "I have come to see life as it truly is, devoid of all its colored wrappings. That is all." 

Abruptly, Farnworth strode in through the door with another guard, his weathered face blank of emotion, eyes glittering. The other guard stayed a step behind, saluting smartly. Every head turned. 

"Farnworth," Clara said, "Glad to see you. How goes the rebellion?" 

Damion's head whipped around to her and back to Farnworth, the relief he felt turning into horror. "No," he whispered, speechless. "Farnworth?" But the question was not necessary. He had been betrayed by the captain of the guards and had not known it. No wonder so many in the palace had turned! 

"Not well, your grace," Farnworth said to Clara wryly. "The Gundams are in the city." 

"Gundams!" Clara gasped. Damion turned to look at Heero, but Heero was watching Farnworth attentively, like a wolf, and his expression did not change. 

"Your scheme is falling apart," Farnworth continued, removing his gloves. "You have lost your leverage against Damion." He looked up. "I'm sorry, prince," he said simply. "But it is in her grace's and my best interest to destroy you now." And he drew a gun from his coat. 

Relena gasped. "You mustn't do this!" 

"No, Farnworth!" Clara seethed, fists clenching. "This is not what I want!" 

Farnworth paid her no mind. 

"Master Damion!" Manny cried, sprinting toward him. 

Damion couldn't tear his eyes away from the gun leveled at his chest. "Stay back, Manny!" he cried. Terrese echoed his shout with a hollow cry of fear. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Damion caught sight of the guard holding Heero to the ground topple suddenly. The two guards by the door abruptly raised their hands in defense. Out of the madness, Heero rose to his feet like a slender blade. The other three guards went down to quick and accurately aimed blows, a knife falling from one of the guard's hands with a clatter. Alone, Heero raised a hand and caught a gun out of midair. It was tossed to him by the guard behind Farnworth. 

Two shots were fired, seemingly simultaneously. Damion closed his eyes and gasped, but no bullet penetrated his chest. Even so, he could smell blood in the air. He opened his eyes to see Farnworth crumple, his face unrecognizeable and streaming with blood. Heero stood off to the side, four guards laying unconscious about his feet, one arm outstretched and a gun in his hand. As Farnworth toppled, the guard who had entered with him became visible, but he was no longer saluting. Damion gasped. It was the stranger from before, the gundam pilot who had come to him at the gates! 

"Trowa!" Relena cried in surprise. "Damion, Heero, are you all right?" 

Heero pressed a hand to his side. "Eye for an eye," he muttered, but straightened and nodded wearily. 

Damion didn't answer. Farnworth's gun was smoking. The shot had missed him... It was then that he noticed that Clara was leaning limply against his shoulder. He had caught her in the confusion. No, she had stepped in front of him! He stared down at her and choked back a cry. Blood ran over his hands, pouring from a gaping wound in her chest, warm, black-red and sticky. Her limbs were lifeless and limp like jelly, her face pale and beaded with sweat, but she was still alive. 

"Clara!" he cried as she wilted in his grasp, he legs giving way. He knelt with her, holding her body, supporting her. "Clara," he called again, softly, urgently. She took a bullet for him... "Speak! _Please_." 

Sweat covered her face. Blood flecked her lips, but she smiled at him, a thin, weak smile. "I'm sorry," she said, and coughed. The blood pouring from her chest was soaking into her dress, blending with the color, staining his hands. "It wasn't meant to end like this." 

"Clara," he whispered, feeling numb. He could see images of her in his head. Clara at age three in a puffy dress, stumbling after him, pouring him lemonade she made herself, forgetting the sugar. Clara with a tiara on her head, laughing and twirling in circles. Clara in her mother's lap, sleeping like a baby, sucking her thumb. Clara learning to read with him, sitting beside him in classes. Clara, kissing him on the cheek at an adult party and him yelling at her for being gross. Clara yelling at him, demanding the impossible, stalking him around the palace, always there. She was always an annoyance, but she had been very much alive. Clara, returning at age seventeen, darkly beautiful, trying to seduce him, taunting him with hidden jibes, retaliating in spite, but still alive. He could feel her life seeping through his fingers, the blood sticking to his hands. He couldn't stop it! 

"I lied," she choked, struggling. "I always loved you. You have every reason to hate me, but I couldn't bear to see you slip away. I thought maybe in time... I'm so sorry." 

Tears formed in his eyes as he hovered over her. She stared up into his face, into his eyes. "I'm sorry too," he whispered. She smiled slightly, but her eyes looked distant. "Clara?" he shouted. Waves of sorrow poured over his head. Ragged sobs tore from his throat. "_Clara_!!" She shuddered, her body spasming. Spittle mixed with blood flecked her lips, her chin. Her eyes were glassy. And then she went limp. He shook her, breathing hard, tears on his cheeks. He felt like he was breaking apart. "NO!" he cried, hugging her close to him. She was still warm... 

"She's dead," Heero's voice came softly from behind him. "I'm sorry." 

Damion smoothed back Clara's hair from her face and rested her gently on the ground with trembling hands. He closed her eyelids and sat up on his knees, unable to look away. She was dead. "Maybe if I had done something," he whispered to no one in particular. "If I had been nicer to her..." 

Relena knelt by his side, wrapping her arms around his neck. He hadn't heard or seen her approach, but he barely had the strength to grasp her arm. "It's not your fault," Relena murmured into his shoulder. "It's not." 

He nodded and wrenched his gaze away. He must save grieving for later. He stood, blotting out the vision of Clara's still body on the ground, pulling Relena up with him. She let go and stepped back. He noticed that she avoided Heero's eyes, and he hers. Of course. The last time they had been so close, she proclaimed her hate for him. Damion vanquished all such thoughts from his head. He needed to save his city, and repair what damage he could before it was too late. 

"My Lord Prince," one of the guards Trowa had compromised said hoarsely. Damion turned to him. "My Lord, I just thought you might want to know that more of the garrison is loyal to you and your family than has been behaved. Farnworth was powerfully influential amoung us, but most want nothing more than peace for the city and you in assurance of your claim." 

Damion stared at him with eyes like a raging storm. 

"He's telling the truth," Trowa said in clear and concise tones. "I have been talking to them all morning." 

"That gundams are in the city," Damion said softly. "This is your doing, Heero Yuy?" 

"The gundams are a symbol of peacekeeping now," Relena said. "They will quell this rebellion if anything can." 

"Yes," Trowa said. "Not many can stand against us. And we are not aiming to kill." 

Damion nodded. "I need to get to the main gates," he said. "Watch out for Relena, Manny." 

"I will, sir," Manny said. 

"What are you doing here?" Heero asked Trowa. 

"Looking for you," the other Gundam Pilot replied, his arms crossed. "You were late. It's not like you." 

Heero snorted. "I need to get Zero. Could you escort Damion to the gates for me?" 

Trowa nodded. 

"Heero!" Relena cried. "You're injured." 

"I'm fine," he said, not looking at her. "Stay here and stay safe." Damion frowned. Heero was certainly not fine. He had grappled seriously with those guards, and one of them carried a knife. He thought he saw blood seeping out of Heero's side. _Eye for an eye... _He stared in amazement. The man acted as if he were completely whole. 

A disgusted look contorted Relena's features. "Why must you always fight?" she demanded. "You might kill yourself! You're bleeding, Heero!" She stepped toward him, reaching out with one hand, concern plastering her face. 

"I'm fine," he snarled. "Don't touch me!" He moved back away from her reach. Emotion swirled in his eyes, but beneath the coldness and the frost, they were hard to separate. But Damion could see that he was literally begging her not to get so close. Relena stopped, looking hurt and confused and then shocked. Heero turned away. "I'll meet you on the airfield, Trowa," he said hoarsely. 

"Maybe you _shouldn_'_t_ fight this time, Heero," Trowa said. "You're seriously injured. Relena's right. You might kill yourself." 

"I don't care," Heero said in a haunted tone. "I said I was fine." And he walked out of the room. 

Relena bit her lip, staring after him. 

"It's all right," Damion said comfortingly. "I'm sure he'll be fine." He believed it, if Heero was careful. If he was not careful... 

Relena smiled at him, but the worry did not abate. "Be careful yourself," she whispered. 

"I will," he said reassuringly. He waved an arm at the guardsmen. They fell in behind him as he strode out the door. Trowa walked along by his side, watching everythings, a bland deadness in his eyes. 

It wasn't over yet. 

* * *

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	11. Chapter 11

  


Heart of the Sword 

Chapter 11 

by Zapenstap 

  
  
  


Relena, Terrese and Manny stood alone in the dining room. The guards had all followed Damion, and had taken the bodies of Clara and Farnworth with them. All was quiet now, too quiet. 

Relena bit her lip and wrung her hands as she remembered how Heero strode out of the room with a fluid grace and dark light in his eyes, despite the blood-stained hand pressed to his side. She had seen him knifed, saw his face go white as a sheet and his eyes clench shut as he stifled a cry of pain. It had taken everything in her not to rush to him, regardless of how many enemies blocked her path. It wouldn't have been the first time she ahd run into a battle with clear purpose, and Heero had that effect on her. He made her feel strong, capable of doing things that should have frightened her, insane things. She would have gone to him, if Manny hadn't grasped her arm at the last second and Terrese hadn't violently shaken her head, black hair wild about her face. So she stood and watched breathlessly as the scene unfolded. 

Then Damion's life was threatened and she lost her head and cried out, but Heero had stayed true to the mission, over his own pain, over her, over anything, as she had known he would. He was so dedicated. 

And now that dedication might get him killed... again. 

It wasn't that she hated for Heero to fight. She knew he was good and she believed in him, and in fighting for peace, but mostly in him. If only this wasn't another needless battle. There had been so many of those, so many times she had interfered to save him when he thought his life expendable. She had tried so hard to convince him how important he was, how much he meant to everyone, and especially to her. But he didn't understand, or didn't believe. He thought his life was worthless, except on the battlefield, and a death in battle a desirable end, even though he was still young. But then peace had come, and he had survived, and she had thought him changed. 

But _oh_, the ice in his eyes now. Like pools of frost they observed everything without really seeing anything. She searched him desperately for the kind soldier she knew he was, what she had seen in him even on threat of death, but she had glimpsed it only briefly, and saw it swallowed in chill darkness. He was a machine now, a living weapon, save when she had almost touched him. In that instant she saw a flash fire of desire in his eyes, and love, gushing up like water from a flooded well, conflicting with hurt and pain and an impenetrable darkness. It had frightened and confused her, all of it, but now she felt him, in her heart, taking up residence, flooding her mind with his presence. There was something terribly wrong with him, but beneath it, he _loved_ her. She had looked into his eyes and seen it. 

She was still trembling. 

Biting her lip, she fought back the urge to smile foolishly, to pace, or huddle on the ground or think too much of him. She wanted more than anything now to hold him, to soothe his hurts, to see that look in his eyes that made her dizzy even now. And she wanted to return that look tenfold. If he did not believe her when she _said_ how much he meant to her, maybe she could show him. And then other ideas took form in her mind, ideas that made her blush and shift in discomfort and embarrassment, more so because they were not just fancies. They were wishes she wanted to come true, and with her, wishes had a way of turning into plans. 

If he did not die today. She forced down the hot, sudden tears that wanted to flow from her eyes. 

"I hope they are all right," Terrese said quietly. "I feel so helpless in here. The palace is overflowing with guards. Can't we help Damion at all?" 

Relena's head snapped up, her thoughts centering on the present, a vision of pale morning-colored eyes filling her head. Damion! What of Damion? But no! Her feelings would have to wait. There were more important things to be done. "We can clear out the palace!" she said, rising in seriousness. "Trowa said most of the guards were on Damion's side. He's not one to make mistakes like that. We can rally support for Damion here while he goes to the gates! We can provide a back-up team, a base!" 

Terrese's eyes widened. "Are you _insane_?" she demanded. "You want to run around in the middle of a revolution and form _teams_?" 

"Yes!" Relena urged. 

"No, that's not safe!" Manny warned hastily, waving both hands. "Master Damion wants me to look out for you. You could get killed by mistake." 

"I don't care about getting killed!" Relena said with passion, fire in her heart. "Protect Terrese. She is frightened. I am not. I promised Damion when I insisted on coming here that I could do some good." She straightened, raising her head proudly. "I am Relena Peacecraft, ex-Queen of the World," she reminded them. "I will make them listen to me!" 

"Listen to yourself!" Terrese cried. "That's suicide!" 

"No," Relena said calmly. "I know what I'm doing." It would work. It had before. People saw her as a symbol of impenetrable power, a guiding light to peace with the strength to back it. She gathered her energy and headed for the door. 

"Stop!" Manny shouted in quick, aggravated tones. "I have to protect you! Damion will kill me if anything happens to you!" 

"Then you'll have to come with me," Relena called over her shoulder, but she waited at the door. "Don't worry. I'll be fine." 

"_Ohhhh_!" Terrese whined, hands clenched into fists as she batted at the air. "All right. I'm coming." She grabbed Manny's arm and yanked him down the hall, oblivious to his widening eyes. "Come on, Manny!" she said forcefully, dragging him along.   
"Relena's made up her mind and there's no changing it!" 

Manny muttered under his breath, but he swung a startled Terrese around and deposited her behind him. Running forward, he bowed with a grin as he opened the doors for the girls and followed them out into the hallway. Three guards saw them emerge and shouted, drawing weapons. 

"Hold your fire!" Relena cried. "Are you friends or foes of Ravineere?" 

The guards slowed to a stop and exchanged confused looks. "We serve the prince," one said slowly and wearily. 

"Do you want peace in this city?" Relena demanded. "If you do, come with us. Clara Veron and Captain Farnworth are dead, but the city is in peril. We must gather everyone willing and the rest will yield or follow!" 

"Who are you?" another of the guards asked. 

"I am Relena Peacecraft," she said with steel in her voice, standing proudly. 

The guards stared at her and at one another. But they saw who they thought they saw, and wonder overcame them. "Our arms are yours," the first who had spoken said, and bowed. "Take us to the prince." 

Relena nodded. 

"You mean to follow him out to the _gates_?" Manny hissed to her in low tones. "He'll have me beheaded!" 

"Everything's all right," Relena said soothingly. 

Except that Heero might die. She had to get to him, and Damion too. Somehow, she had to conquer resistance in the palace, bring peace to the city, save two warriors in the midst of battle and sort out her tangled emotions for two beautiful princes who loved her, one from the beloved earth and the other from the sky. 

And then it came to her. Someone had to lose... 

***** 

Damion and Trowa hurried down the hall, boots pounding against the tiles, moving as quick as they could without running. They had to be careful. 

Heero had already outpaced them, seemingly trying to get out of site, his face a sheen of sweat, his hand clutching his side in pain. Damion worried about him, enough that he considered commanding him to stop and stay out of it, but the thought never made it passed the initial stages. Heero wouldn't take orders from him, and he had no desire to command him anyway. He was beginning to see the hero of the war, Heero Yuy; kind, but cold, not vicious, but stay out of his way. Whatever evil had possessed him on that hill that one stormy night, and the days before, might have belonged to another man, but the dark coldness that frosted his soul now was scarier. Damion preferred the mad passion. At least it was human. 

But he was gone now. Trowa and Damion had seen no sight of him for some time. 

"Trowa, right?" Damion asked his companion as they ate up the floor in long strides. 

"That's what they call me," Trowa replied in small, quiet tones. "You have a question?" 

"Heero," Damion said, "and Relena. What can you tell me?" 

Trowa frowned at him. "Are you sure you want to know?" 

Damion blinked. It was not the answer he had expected. "Yes," he said seriously. "Why?" 

Trowa nodded to himself. "I see. You deserve all the information. As I understand it, Heero came to earth in much the same state as you see him now. The first person he met was Relena. She came upon him when he crashed to Earth and saw his face. He enrolled in her school and promised to destroy her." 

"I've heard this part," Damion said, but he lowered his brows in contemplation. There was nothing halting or confused about Trowa's interpretation; he laid out facts, cleanly and concisely. "Go on." 

"I didn't meet Heero until later, but as I understand it, Heero was unable to kill Relena as he promised. I'm sure you can see how that is not like him." 

"I can," Damion agreed. 

Trowa shrugged. "Heero tried to self-detonate later," he said, his eyes blank as he remembered the past, "and succeeded in the act, but did not die." He shook his head, a softness in his eyes. "I thought it was commendable, but women who care for you, they disagree." 

Damion frowned in puzzlement. 

"I tried it," Trowa supplied in explanation. "But Catherine, my sister, stopped me. I never knew before then how much I mattered to anybody." 

"Oh." He felt peculiar and out of place among all this sadness, but he wanted to hear it all. 

Trowa blinked slowly. "It is amazing how much power a woman's care can have. Relena influenced Heero. Except for the time I told you about, she attempted to prevent Heero from dying every time he tried, and some way or another, Heero did not die." 

Damion stared in shock. "He's suicidal?" 

"Not exactly," Trowa clarified. "He's the perfect soldier, though. He will exchange his life for the mission, do anything to succeed, and he always succeeds. I think he kept expecting to die and felt thwarted. So he started trying harder to do both. But Relena would call him back, and back he came, until the end, when he finally _wanted_ to survive for himself. I heard he gave her a gift for her birthday." 

Damion said nothing. He could feel nothing but sorrow in his gut, and his throat felt choked. To be so dedicated... the man must have no sense of self at all. "How?" he whispered. "How did she prevent him?" 

"She threw herself in the middle of a battle in Antarctica once," Trowa said slowly. "The fight was meaningless and everyone knew it, but it was a perilous move. I hear she did a lot of that, though. She always dared Heero to destroy her, but whether she really wanted him to, I can not say. Perhaps she was testing him, perhaps she just really wanted to see him, perhaps she was testing her own strength and resolve; I don't know." 

Damion stared at him in total incomprehension. She threw herself into battles and demanded to be killed? Amazing...Crazy- weird, but amazing. 

"I can't tell you the particulars," Trowa continued. "I don't think anyone but Heero and Relena knows the whole story and I doubt either of them will share, but I know Heero went to rescue Relena when she was at Libra, and he brought her back safely to Peace Million. She was anxious that Heero was out on a suicide mission and no one allowed her to prevent it. But as I said, he survived. After the war, Heero told us he would protect Relena from the shadows, that because of her he no longer lived to fight, but he would not go to her directly. Quatre thought he would, but they stayed apart except when business brought them together. They were together for a short time later with that incident in the colonies, but I can't tell you much about it." 

"He kissed her," Damion said, remembering his conversation with Relena so long ago... right before the fight on the hill. "They never talked about it." 

"Did he?" Trowa said, sounding slightly surprised. "I never would have guessed that of him. All I know is that when Mariemaia came, Heero fired at the building Relena was in and then collapsed in her arms. That's the rumor anyway. After that... I don't know; he just left." 

Damion's thoughts were empty. He just left? Perhaps Clara was right. There really was no such thing as love in the world, only lust and confusion and the blindness of fools. What was his own love for Relena really? Did he really understand himself or the world enough to really know anything about love, or was he blinded too? What was Heero's love, if he just left? Was the man merely jealous that what he had discarded another had picked up? And now that he has shed himself of those feelings he was simply cold again? Damion felt darkness in his heart, but it was clarifying. Love was a preoccupation of idealists and Heero was merely a man passing between places of pain and icy cold. But there was still a warmness in Damion's heart for Relena, and he didn't know what to do or what to believe. 

"There!" Damion cried as the two of them burst through the lobby toward the gates. They ran right through a group of guards without stopping. Damion wished he could take back the palace, but there was no time, not when people might be dying in the streets! 

The guards at the gates saw them coming and saluted. The civilians that had swarmed before the gate before and prevented his entrance were gone, but there were wounded being tended everywhere. Damion swallowed. It had come to fighting after all. 

"My Lord Prince, you're alive!" Oswold shouted. He was second in command under Farnworth, first in command now. Damion hesitated in reply. 

"He's on your side," Trowa assured him. 

Damion nodded. He must trust the gundam pilot's judgment. Time was too short to play guessing games. "Oswold," he said formally in greeting. "What's happening?" 

"Chaos is the city, my Lord!" The man said breathlessly, saluting. "The people tried to break down the gates. We had to open fire, but we did so into the air at first. Most broke and fled as you can see, but the more persistent pushed forward. We were forced to kill a few," he lamented in grave tones. 

Damion's breath came heavily, but he knew there was more. "That is not the worst," he prompted. 

Oswold shook his head. "The people have heavy weaponry, blast cannons, capable of destroying entire buildings. The city would be in shambles by now if the gundams hadn't showed up almost immediately after you went in." 

"Those weapons can't destroy a gundam," Trowa said, "but they do have an effect. Enough carefully aimed shots could seriously damage the suit or kill the pilot. How goes the battle?" 

"Gundam 04 has cleared out the airfield," Oswold said. The other two are out in the city. 02 cleared out the remaining rabble by the gates." 

"Did you see someone come through here?" Damion asked. "Wounded?" 

"Yes," Oswold said. "He came when 02 did and hitched a ride. He was wounded? He didn't look it." 

"He wouldn't," Trowa said. 

"Oswold," Damion commanded. "I assume those loyal to me have compromised those who are not?" Oswold nodded. "Good. I need the prisoners locked up and guarded. Send the rest of the remaining troops to bring order to the city where the Gundams have finished their work. The people will be terrified, but they need to know that I am still in command, that Clara and the rebellion is dead or dying, and that the battle will be won in my favor today. I wish I could lead you, but you are a more capable Captain, and there is something else I must do." 

Oswold beamed as Damion pronounced him Captain. "We are short on people, my Lord, but everything that can be done, will be done." He saluted before turning and barking orders. 

Trowa turned to Damion. "Your people know their work. There's not a whole lot left for you to do now but watch and wait. You can not go after Heero." 

Damion clenched his teeth. "He'll be killed if he's not careful." 

Trowa shrugged. "He's made his decision. There's no stopping him now. He will head for the airfield and Wing Zero. There's nothing more we can do." 

***** 

Heero leaped off the hand of the Deathscythe to the airstrip and almost collapsed on the ground in a flare of dizzying pain. He breathed heavily, straightening and making for the Wing Zero as well as he could, body coated in a sheen of sweat. The blood in his side had stopped flowing. It was clogged and matted with his shirt and skin now, and his skin tore whenever he twisted, but he ignored the pain and the swimming feeling in his head. 

It was all over. He would end it as he should have years ago, in battle. And then it would not matter if Relena hated him, or that she was Damion's, or that Damion deserved her. Nothing would matter. She would be happy and he would be free to leave the world with a claim to honor. 

Why did she have to look at him like that back there? The concern in her eyes was maddening! Didn't she understand that he could not stand to be around her, that her presence made his blood boil, that it was distracting and pointless? She hated him for what he had done in his madness and said she never wanted to see him again. If fate brought them together one last time, the least she could do would be to ignore him. That would be merciful. 

"I am a weapon," he reminded himself as he climbed into the cockpit of the Wing Zero. His side throbbed. It almost overwhelmed his senses, but it made him smile. If Damion could ride a horse with a wound like this, he could fight. He activated the mechanism that turned Wing from a plane to a gundam. 

"Heero," Duo said, and the vidscreen in the corner flickered. "Are you all right, man?" 

"I'm fine," Heero said coldly. 

"Shit, you're bleeding. I'm sorry I brought you. Why don't you sit this one out? We can handle it." 

"No!" Heero said, and then more quietly, "Quatre fought with a wound like this. So can I." 

"I think yours is worse and this is a ground battle. There's a lot of gravity and you're all hunched over... why don't you just take a break?" 

"Stay out of it!" Heero cried. "If I die, let me. It's none of your concern!" 

"Heero," Duo said lowly, voice coated in worry. 

"Stay out of it," Heero repeated in a whisper through clenched teeth as a lance of pain shot through him. He shuddered and fought for control. When he recovered, he made Wing stand, drew his beam saber, and started forward. There were battles to fight. 

***** 

In an hour, Relena and her growing army tore through the halls of the palace, their feet pounding on the floor. At every turn they picked up more people, and hauled away a few others known to be traitors. Relena brushed blonde hair from her eyes as she burst through to the foyer with Manny and Terrese on her heels. 

"Full circle," Terrese said, staring in amazement at the hundred, maybe more, guards that clogged the hallway behind them. "The whole palace is clean." 

Relena nodded, her face flushed with excitement and anxiety. "To the gates then," she said with the air that remained in her lungs. 

They followed her, all of them, and Manny opened the door for her hastily as she strode from the palace to the sunlight outside. It was such a beautiful place, Taravren, small and quiet and peaceful without this fray, but her eyes sought out Damion by the gates, and she ran to him. 

He turned at her approach, astonishment plain on his face, but he came toward her and lifted her up into a hug, spinning her about before setting her back on her feet. He looked over her shoulder at his soldiers as they knelt one by one at the entrance. "You did this?" he said in amazement. 

"I tried to stop her, sir," Manny said with a grin, "but she wouldn't have it. As brave as any queen, my Lord." 

Damion smiled at him and at her, but when he looked back toward the city, his face was grave. 

"How is Heero?" Relena stammered, looking up into his eyes, her own shimmering in her concern. 

Damion shook his head. "Fighting," he said. "For some time now." 

At that moment, Deathscythe and Altron appeared, thudding through the roads and around the buildings. Relena disengaged herself from Damion, overwhelmed with worry, her heart racing with anxiety. "Duo!" she shouted up at the Deathscythe. The wind created by the gundam's movements whipped her hair about her face and shoulders. "Where is Heero?" she yelled. 

Silence met her, but then the cockpit to the Deathscythe opened and she could see Duo's face, worn and solemn. 

Cold fear stabbed her heart and she trembled. "Where is he?" she yelled again, panicking. "Answer me, Duo!" 

"He's down," Duo said quietly. "Just now, about a mile into the city. All we've been able to get from him is static. He's not responding. We came to find you." 

The world seemed to stop. Relena swallowed and began breathing hard and quickly. "I must go to him," she said to no one in particular. "Now!" She made as if to run, but Damion grabbed her arm. 

"Wait! I'll get horses. They're close and it will save time. Please wait." 

She nodded, but her whole body was shuddering and would not stop. 

Damion took off toward the stables at a dead run. Trowa followed him, bounding after him like a cat, and whether he was noticed or not was probably irrelevant. Manny hesitated, but stayed with Relena and Terrese, looking after Damion worriedly. 

Relena walked as one dazed, nearly falling over. Terrese came to her side, whispering words of encouragement, but Relena could not hear them. She felt a dreadful urgency, an all-consuming terror as waves of darkness crashed over her heart. 

_Please be alive, Heero_, her heart cried in its torment.   
  
  


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	12. Chapter 12

Heart of the Sword 

Chapter 12 

by Zapenstap 

  
  
  
  
  


"Here," Damion said, flinging open the stable doors. Most of the horses were wild-eyed, reering in their stalls and stamping the floors as Damion and Trowa burst in. The commotion outside has upset them and the grooms had fled, but Damion paid them no mind. Trowa followed him in as he went straight for the back of the stable and pulled open the gates to StormDark, his private horse, and Manny's gelding Challenger. Both were calm and attentive in happy recognition as he came near, but there was no time for greetings. 

"Which one should I ride?" Trowa asked as Damion murmured gentle words and fiddled with the latches on the gate. 

"Doesn't matter," he replied. "The one on your left is pretty gentle." 

"I like this one," Trowa said, approaching the stall of one of newer stallions. "What's his name?" 

"Red Jasper," Damion said with a note of warning, half turning. "He's a handful and we don't have time for saddles. Can you ride bareback?" 

"Sure," Trowa said quietly, stroking the horse's muzzle and looking into its eyes. "I work with lions at a circus, but we have horses too." He opened the gate to Red Jasper's stall and guided the horse out into the open. "What's your horse's name?" 

"StormDark." 

"Odd name. Shouldn't it be dark storm?" 

Damion smiled. "It's the color," he said. "This horse was a gift. We didn't have a name for it at first so the grooms started referring to him by how he looked. 'He's storm dark,' they would say. The name stuck. Can you hand me that bridle over there for Challenger?" 

"I can do it. You get the horses outside," Trowa said. He left Red Jasper unattended, grabbed a bridle from the wall and began fitting it over Challenger's head. Red Jasper waited patiently as Damion had never seen him do, even looking attentive. 

Damion didn't even blink. Nothing about these pilots was going to susprise him anymore. There was not a moment to waste wondering about it. "All right, then," he said through gritted teeth, flinging open the gate and coaxing StormDark out of the stall. The horse followed his hand, its gray, nearly black coat glistening in the sunlight that poured in from the doors. Damion grabbed a leading rope hanging from the wall behind him and clipped it to Challenger's bridle. Grasping the lead rope just under the horse's chin and getting a grip on StormDark's mane with the other hand, he walked both horses outside, standing between them. Trowa followed. Just before the gate, Damion caught sight of his quarterstaff leaning the against the wall. He let go of StormDark, letting him trot a few paces ahead into the open, and snagged the weapon, rolling it into his hands with the tips of his fingers and whirling it up under his arm. Once outside, he whistled once and waited as StormDark's ears pricked forward and he responded. When the horse came to his side, Damion grabbed a fistful of his mane and vaulted easily into the saddle, still holding the lead rope to Manny's horse. 

"Is Relena going to ride that one?" Trowa asked, already on Red Jasper's back and guiding the animal like a man who had been riding all his life. The only think between him and the horse's bare back was a vaulting blanket. He nodded toward Challenger. 

"No. Manny will," Damion responded, turning StormDark back toward the gates with the pressure from his knees. "I don't know if Relena can ride bareback, so she can ride behind me." 

"Then let me lead the other horse," Trowa said, and Damion tossed him the rope without further questions. Damion rotated the quarterstaff until he had it fairly secure in front of him and urged StormDark forward into a light trot and then a canter, steadily picking up speed. Trowa thundered after them. 

As they drew closer, Damion caught sounds of commotion at the gates, like fighting. Seething inwardly, he leaned forward and pushed StormDark on faster. StormDark responded with little encouragement.   
  
  
  


***** 

Relena took deep breaths to calm herself, but her stomach quivered with untameable anxiety however she breathed. Her vision blurred if she was not careful, and the ache in her heart jostled tears to her eyes against the will of her mind. She paced about the court before the gates, breathing on her hands and biting her fingers. 

Terrese stood off to one side, watching Relena with brows lowered in worry, but all her comforts were to no avail and she had ceased trying. Manny stood beside her, talking in soft, reassuring tones. Duo and Wufei remained in their gundams, but Relena could feel their eyes on her. She wondered if they were merely concerned or if they watched her because they wanted her to be strong, to pull herself and the world together, but she could not, not without Heero. She was afraid. 

The soldiers had mostly dispersed at Oswold's orders, save some few who lingered as Damion and Trowa left. And these watched her intently. It was only when she managed to glance briefly up from her troubles that she noticed they were fingering weapons. 

She gasped in alarm, but before she could react, one of the guards seized her by the arm and pulled her close, a knife whipping out from under his coat with the other hand. "For the death of Clara!" he hissed into her ear, and obviously knew he would die as well, but not until she was dead, for the gundams, as large as they were, could not be so accurate as to kill one without destroying both. 

"Whoa!" Duo said in surprise, and Deathscythe jerked, its scythe spinning into a grip in both hands. Its eyes glowed balefully, a hellish glare of terror, but the guard's hand was steady and there was nothing a gundam could do in this case except threaten total destruction. But the guard who held her was prepared to die. 

"No!" Relena cried, struggling. "I can't die yet! Heero!" Tears streamed from her eyes and she jerked spasmodically, her hands clawing for release, pushing and tugging at the arm squeezing her chest beneath her breasts. She did not cry Heero's name for him to rescue her, but for his sake. If she was killed now, Heero would die too, if he was not already dead. If he was alive, if he had lived to return to her, and found her dead... she remembered the love in his eyes, the melting, sweeping, agonizing emotion... "_No_," she gasped, pleading, tears rolling down her cheeks. "Please! Oh, God. _Heero_!" 

Suddenly, the grip on her was loosened and she pulled free, darting out into the open. She turned just in time to see Manny slug the guard across the face with force to crack stone, his features contorted in rage. The guard crumpled at his feet, nose a broken, bloody mess. Manny shook his hand and cracked his knuckles, bouncing a little and breathing steadily. The knife clattered to the ground. 

A peculiar sound came from the Deathscythe. Laughter. "That's a whole lot funnier when it happens to someone else," Duo chuckled. 

"Yeah, really," Wufei echoed soberly from Altron. He aimed his dragon at the other guards who had remained, staring with slack jaws at the man unconscious on the ground. They swallowed and dropped their weapons, raising their hands to the sky. "You guys need to learn a thing or two about honor," Wufei said. 

"You'll never get through the city!" one of them spat. 

Relena was hardly listening. Heero. There was no time to spare, but waiting for Damion, there must be something she could do. With tears drying on her cheeks, she hurriedly removed her coat, a horribly expensive thing, and tore it with her hands into strips of cloth. She spotted a water fosset by the wall and ran to it, her hands shaking as she soaked the remainder of her coat in cool, clean water, letting it run over her hands as well. Her skin was hot with inner fire, but she trembled like she was freezing cold. 

The thundering of hooves alerted her to Damion's return and she turned and stood, pushing strands of hair out of her face. "Damion!" she cried, wrapping the wet coat around her waist, heedless of the damp, and shoving the dry strips into her pocket. 

His horse appeared from around the corner, moving at a dead run in her direction. Stumbling, Relena ran forward to meet it. The horse hardly slowed as Damion approached, but he reached down with one arm and Relena grabbed it as he flew past, gripping his forearm. His hand closed just below her elbow and he swung her up and around, despositing her deftly behind him without losing a step. Relena wrapped her arms around his waist in terror as they flew through the gates and into the city. Damion rode like he had been born on horseback and Relena could do nothing but hold on and think that each gallop, each building that flew past in a blur, brought her one step closer to Heero. He had to be alive! If he was not... 

She looked back over her shoulder to see Trowa and Manny riding behind them. Terrese was clutching Manny from behind, her face burried in his back in fear, but she must have wanted to come. Gundam Deathscythe turned from the palace and began following them in slow, moving steps, careful not the crush anything important beneath its feet. Gundam Altron remained behind, guarding the guards. 

"He said we'd never make it through the city!" Relena said loudly. The wind swallowed the volume of her words, but Damion heard them. 

"That's why I wanted horses. We'll go straight through the city, but not through the main streets, except where it can't be helped." 

Relena nodded and pressed her cheek against Damion's shoulder to feel more secure. _ Be alive, Heero. _She also didn't want anyone to see her cry. 

The horses flew ahead of the gundam, smaller as they were, leaping over debris, pounding across pavement and over bridges. Whenever Damion's horse jumped, Relena gasped, clutching Damion tighter, but they always landed flawlessly, and Damion never moved or turned his head. They took back alleyways too small for even cars to get through, leaped fences and paid no heed at all to the clamouring of civillians or rebellion soldiers in the city. Once, Relena thought she heard the shot of a gun fired at them as they passed through a main street, but if so it missed them, flying like the wind as they were, and Damion ignored it. 

Abruptly, they burst through a group of buildings and Relena could see Gundam Sandrock rising into the sky, and just behind it, Wing Zero, collapsed on the ground like a man sitting. It did not move, and she could not see into the cockpit, but she squirmed against Damion, demanding to be let off. There were three armed men swarming between them and the Wing Zero, darting in and out under Sandrock's legs as Quatre aimed blows at them. Several others had already been taken out by the gundam pilot. 

"They're trying to get to Heero!" Relena cried. "Stop!" she cried at them, futiley she knew. "Leave him alone!" 

Damion plunged forward and a quarterstaff appeared in his hand, held locked against his forearm and extended like a bar. Relena gasped as Damion practically ran over one of the men in the street. The staff hit him in the head and he went down like a ton of bricks. Within twelve feet of Wing Zero, Damion leaned back and relaxed his horse into a stop. "Hurry," he said. Relena swung her leg behind her and slid off on her hip. Damion dismounted behind her. Relena took two steps toward the Wing Zero before her way was blocked by a man with a gun in his hand and an evil leer on his face. 

Damion leaped in front of her or she would not have even slowed. His quarterstaff blurred and the gun flew out of the man's hand in an instant, sliding on the pavement. The guard shouted, clutching a broken wrist, but before he could move, the other end of Damion's quarterstaff knocked his legs out from under him. The man made to rise, but it was too late. He slumped unconscious as the quarterstaff turned again, thudding into his temple in a controlled manner. 

Manny and Trowa came up behind. Manny halted his mount and dismounted, helping a shaky Terrese to the ground, but Trowa went forward. Releasing his horse's mane, he swung his feet up behind him and rose to stand on the horse's back, covered only with a thick blanket. Standing with legs slightly bent, he rode toward the last enemy, who stood with his mouth agape, gun forgotten in his hand. Suddenly, Trowa jumped and flipped. His booted feet hit the soldier in the face with a well-aimed kick and they both toppled. Trowa grabbed the man's gun, turned it backward, and slugged him across the head with the handle. 

Relena's way to Heero was clear, but she had moved even before the last guard was down. Heedless, she ran to the Wing Zero and clambered up and over it to the cockpit. It was opaque, dull green, like a gate of stone. She screamed, the sound startling her, and pounded furiously on the glass-like material, crying and calling out. "Heero!" she gasped. "Heero, can you hear me? Please answer. It's Relena. Speak to me, Heero!" 

But no sound returned her cries, not even the movement of life. 

"He hasn't responded for some time, Miss Relena," Quatre's voice came from the Sandrock, and there were tears in his voice. "I've been trying." 

"Can you see him?" Relena gasped, tears on her cheeks as she looked up at the other gundam. "Quatre?" 

"No. There's nothing but static from his channel." 

She clawed at the door, looking for a latch, an opening. "How do I open it?" she sobbed. Her fingers stung. "Heero!" She pounded with one fist on the door and collapsed in a heap of tears. "Why do you have to be so dedicated?" she cried, and slapped furiously on the cockpit. "If you wanted to live, you would! Why do you want to die? Isn't it possible we are both just a little too dedicated?" She sobbed, her shoulder's shaking. Her fingers attempted to clutch the smooth glass. She couldn't see through her tears. "I don't want you to die, Heero. I don't want you to die!" 

And then, faintly, "I'm not dead...Relena." 

She froze, fingers lingering on the glass, tears stilled in her eyes. "Heero," she whispered. "Tell me you're not dying." 

"Relena..." 

Her name, spoken with such tenderness, but also with foreboding. "Open the door, Heero," she murmured. "Please, I beg you." He hesitated. "Please," she repeated. She moved her hand away and stepped back as the cockpit opened, rising slowly. As soon as it was open enough, she ducked under it and leaned inside. 

Heero lay in the pilot's seat like one sick, his arms and legs loose, his head crooked slightly back. Every bit of exposed skin was coated with a sheen of glistening sweat and his eyes had a glassy look. Old and new blood streamed down his side from a clotted wound, soaking his clothes around his chest and down his hip. He looked at her and smiled weakly, his brow creased in pain. 

Relena swallowed, trembling now with his hurt and love. His eyes closed as she reached for him and winced in pain as she lifted his shirt away from his wound, peeling away some of the caked blood with it. She untied her coat, still soaking with water, from around her waist and dabbed at the blood, wiping away the excess and cleaning out the slash in his side. He tensed, muffling a cry as fresh blood began to well up from the wound, but she kissed his hand to ease him and took the strips of her coat from her pocket. She wadded some of them up into a bandage and pressed it tightly against his side. He breathed heavily, but the hand that she had kissed moved to cover hers, holding the bandage in place for her. She smiled wanly and began to wind strips of cloth around his waist, tying them tightly. After she had done this several times, she took Heero's arms and wrapped them around her neck. "You're going to be okay, Heero," she whispered coaxingly. "Come on." He fell forward as she pulled him out of the Wing Zero's cockpit, and as she stumbled backwards from his weight, they both half crashed to the ground below. 

Relena sat up, wiping hair away from her eyes. Heero groaned, but he sat up too, right hand pressed tightly to his left side. As he looked up their eyes met within inches of the other's face, and every thought and movement in Relena's head froze as she found herself suddenly drowning, her hands usless and forgotten in her lap. This close, she could see oceans of love in Heero's eyes, and the ice that had frozen them thawed, melting like snow in a warm spring rainstrom. She stared, locked in a sea of enchantment, frozen stiff as Heero's left hand wandered up to her face, tracing her jaw as if touching some delicate piece of artwork. The kindness in his expression was so real, so beautiful, so surreal, she was not sure she was really seeing it. Her breath caught in her throat and she reached up to wipe the sweat from his face, until she forgot was she was doing and merely carassed his cheeks with her thumbs and fingers, lost in his eyes. He stopped holding his wound, took both her hands in his and brought them down with a soft smile, but their gaze did not diesngage until he suddenly cried out in pain, doubling over into her lap. 

"Heero!" she cried, falling over him, concern and worry bringing tears to her eyes as she tried to get a look at his face. He was still clasping one of her hands and she could feel the strength in his grip. 

Suddenly she was surrounded by people. Quatre, Trowa and Duo were among them as Heero was suddenly borne up and out of her reach by soldiers and taken to an arriving ambulance. Relena sat numbly in the street, her legs sprawled about her, staring after him. She rose unsteadily and began walking as the company remaining followed the ambulance to the hospital. 

But Damion was gone. 

***** 

Damion watched in dark quiet as Relena half disappeared into the Wing Zero and moments later pulled a sorely wounded and weak Heero from the cockpit. He wasn't sure what it was he felt, but something stirred deep within him, heavy with sorrow, magnifying when Heero touched Relena's face. They stared at one another in absolute silence. They were like people suddenly renewed by drinking in the other's presence, people who were before dying of thirst. The looks that passed between them as they breathed were identical, and unmistakeable. 

Damion's heart plummeted into blackness. 

"My Lord," Manny murmured soberly at his side. 

Damion closed his eyes with effort and turned away from the scene and toward his best friend and loyal servant. He was breathing much too hard, and could not calm himself. Nor could he bring himself to speak. He was losing her. 

"Sir," Manny said in slow, careful tones, glancing at Heero and Relena and swinging his eyes back again to Damion. "You love her..." 

"Not like that," Damion said harshly, and clenched his eyes shut to stop the flow of sudden hot and furious tears. "Nor she to me." 

Manny swallowed, looking disconcerted and at a loss for words. "Damion," he began. 

"Leave me be!" Damion cried deeply in his torment, and turning, raced back to StormDark. He swung himself onto the horse's back and whirled his startled mount around, breaking for the palace. 

"Damion!" Manny called after him, but to no avail. Damion could hear no voices except his father's, and see no visions except that which had just witnessed, that, and Clara's blood staining his fingers. 

_"And if it is not to be, you must forsake love and be a prince before a man."_

It seemed his inkling had proven correct. He was not meant to love in this life. It had caused nothing but pain. At least the battle was over and the city had been saved. 

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	13. Chapter 13

Heart of the Sword 

Chapter 13 

by Zapenstap 

  
  


Duo, Trowa, Quatre and Wufei sat around a solid oak table in a small, but well furnished room in the Taravren Palace, guests of the royal family and heroes of the city, but they were not celebrating. The rebellion was over; the instigators all found and locked away to await trial and sentencing, the bodies of those fallen removed and a memorial service already planned. The city was being repaired, medical attention distributed, and order and business expected to recover in a short amount of time, thanks to the gundams. There had been only minimal casualties among civilians, especially when word was spread that Damion was alive and victorious; the rebels had surrendered without further quarrel. 

The Gundams Sandrock and Wing needed repairs and were now stored in the open armory and training courtyard of the palace to be fixed. Deathscythe Hell and Altron had been moved to the airport. Because of its unpredictable firepower in close civilian quarters, Heavyarms was never brought. They had saved the city, and would be honored, gundams and pilots alike. It had all been Heero's plan. 

The gundam pilots didn't say anything to one another, and hadn't for some time. Duo did not try to start up a conversation. He couldn't stop thinking if Heero had survived the night, for they had heard nothing yet from the hospital. Over and over in his mind he pondered what he had seen and heard yesterday, still bewildered by it all. Quatre had explained to him what happened when Relena arrived, how she and Heero had looked at each other in complete oblivion to anybody else watching. Duo was only sorry he had missed it. 

He needed no proof or confirmation. He was not skeptical. Heero had fallen in a state of delirium in the ambulance. Duo and Quatre had sat with him and listened in astonished silence as he tossed and turned and cried out about having been thwarted by death, apologizing endlessly to Damion, who wasn't there, and begging all sorts of forgiveness from Relena. Her name escaped his lips most often, and several times brought tears to his eyes even as he thrashed in pain and sweated. Twice he told her that he loved her, and once took it back with mutterings about not deserving her, and then he ranted about killing and not wanting to kill, and finally fell unconscious. Quatre and Duo had watched and listened in stunned awe. Heero's ravings were so full of emotion it frightened both of them, but they believed every word. It seemed he was human after all, and desperately in love. 

Relena had wandered into the palace late last night and after mumbling something about having just wanted to walk about the city and think, had flown into a room prepared for her and would not open the door. But everyone could hear her sobbing. Quatre had voiced in question more than once whether she cried for Heero or for Damion and no one knew the answer. Obviously, she had a decision to make. 

Everyone had seen Damion. He was in the palace when they arrived, and though he made them feel welcome and offered them all manner of hospitality, he was not personal. His eyes more resembled a storm than the gray morning, and seemed to look through everybody. He did not try to see Relena, and those who had not been at the scene wondered. Those who had turned away with downcast eyes and said nothing. Damion was busy all day and most of the night directing everyone and everything and neither slept nor ate as far as anyone knew. There was evidence of redness about his eyes, from tiredness or tears, but he smiled falsely and went about his work and there was no doubt in anyone's mind from the way he moved to the way he spoke that he really was the prince of the city. It was suddenly difficult to notice anything else about him. 

Abruptly, the door to the room swung open. Everyone turned, lifting their heads from where they studied their hands on the table. Duo swallowed. 

She was sadly beautiful, pale cheeks and pale eyes that shimmered softly in the lamplight. She wore a short-sleeved, airy dress of a thin, clingy material that clothed her body close, simply cut with a swooping neck, yellow as her hair and as the sun, but the expression on her face would make even the loveliest ensemble a somber cloak. 

"Relena," Quatre said, half standing to offer her his chair, but she shook her head mutely. 

"Have you news of Heero?" Duo asked, though the words stuck to the roof of his mouth. The expression on her face was so melancholy, so apologetic. And by the redness around her eyes, she had been crying again. Could it be that Heero was dead? _No way_... "Is he gone?" he choked out. 

Relena's lips curled into something resembling a smile, but the rest of her face looked like it might break with tears. "He is gone," she said, and seemed about to say more, but Wufei interrupted her angrily. Duo just stared at nothing in shock. 

"This is all your fault, you know," Wufei said coldly to Relena, not meanly, but with the sort of blunt honesty characteristic of him in his worst moods. He had never liked Relena. She choked and a tear escaped her eye, which she caught and dashed away with the back of her hand, but others followed. Quatre stood up and made as if to hug her, but she fended him off. 

"That was uncalled for, Wufei," Trowa rebuked the Chinese pilot, looking at Relena with obvious concern. Trowa hated to see women cry, perhaps because it was so foreign to him. "This wasn't anybody's fault, and she has suffered greatly." 

Wufei snorted and turned away, but he grappled with himself and finally muttered an apology. 

"He's not dead," Relena said in a quavering voice, trying to hide her tears with her hands and everyone blinked in shock. "He is gone," she cried then. "He left the hospital." She crumpled, slouching over as tears shook her body. "The doctors say he will be fine, but the fact remains that he left and I may never see him again. I don't even know if he's okay. He is gone. He didn't want to stay." 

Duo surged to his feet, out of his chair and grabbed her shoulders. "He won't just leave," he said hastily, not even really sure what he was saying. "He loves you. He said so in the ambulance when he was delirious." But he knew that whatever Heero may have said in his sickness, it would not stop him from fleeing something like this. 

Relena only sobbed harder, shaking under his fingers. "It won't matter," she cried. "He can't admit it. He will leave me here and I will be left hollow. I can't love anybody else. I can't!" She threw her arms around Duo's neck and wept against his shoulder. Unsteadily, he held her, hands on her back and hair. He didn't know what to do. He had never seen anyone like this before, except in movies, and he could think of nothing comforting to say. Heero probably _would_ just leave. 

"No!" he said with sudden inspiration, pushing her away and trying to encourage her by looking into her eyes. "He won't leave Wing Zero behind. He will use that even as an excuse to stay awhile." 

Relena swallowed and looked back at him. "I thought of that," she said quietly. "But I... If he doesn't _want_ to stay..." 

"He wants to stay," Duo assured her, and he believed it. "He loves you. Maybe he doesn't know if you return it." 

"I do!" she cried. "He knows! He doesn't believe..." 

"You'll just have to show him then," Duo said with energy, pushing her toward the door. "You must talk to him, today, before he leaves for good, but first you have to..." 

"First I have to see Damion," Relena finished for him, and the tears were gone from her eyes. "I know." She bit her lip. "Thank you," she said to him, and repeated it again to them all. "I will give it one last try." 

Once she was gone, everyone let out a sigh of relief they hadn't known they had been holding. Duo almost sat right down on the floor. As it was, he stumbled into his chair and began fanning his face with his hat. "This is stressful," he muttered. "I don't know how to handle any of this." 

Quatre had a dreamy look on his face as he smiled after Relena. "You did well. I hope they work it out." 

"Me too," Trowa said. "But I worry about Damion." 

"He's strong," Wufei commented, crossing his arms. "He's not going to give up on life over a girl." 

"I'm not worried about him giving up on life," Trowa returned, "but love is another matter." Quatre looked troubled. 

Duo let his head fall on the table, "Well, hell! Who are we supposed to root for?" 

"Love is not something one can win merely by being supported," Trowa said quietly. "It can only bloom if it is really there, and only if it is nourished." 

Duo said nothing. _Don't be an idiot, Heero_, he thought. _Just tell her how you feel_. But that might be too much for someone who thought he was a weapon and nothing more. What had Heero said that one stormy night? _Weapons do not have hearts with which to love, and they can be loved in return only by mistake._ Duo let his head sink into his hands. If Heero still believed that, it really was up to Relena. Maybe it always had been.   
  
  


***** 

  
  
  


Relena knocked on the door to Damion's study with heaviness in her heart. She felt horrible, but she knew it would be more horrible to do anything else. She had caused so much pain, unintentional though it was. She knew it was not really her fault things had ended up this way, that she had acted within all apparent proper guidelines, that it was Heero and her own lack of persistence, honesty and attention to detail that had brought about this mess, but it would be Damion who paid the price. And for that she grieved almost more than she could bear. 

"Come in." 

Relena closed her eyes and opened the door, slipping in and shutting it softly behind her. Damion sat in a chair facing her with a steady expression, but she could not make herself meet his eyes and instead stared at the ground. 

"I knew you would come," he said quietly, laying a book on the table. "I've been told that Heero has survived and will heal in time, and also that he left the hospital this morning." There was something in his tone that told her he knew what she came to say, and simply wanted her to say it and be done. 

"I'm sorry, Damion," she said, still unable to lift her head. "It wasn't meant to end this way." 

"Tell me," he said. "Was I a means to an end for you? In the beginning, before all the madness that followed, did you humor me because you _wanted_ Heero to be jealous and moved into action?" 

Relena bit her lip. If that were true, then she really was at fault that Damion had been stabbed. That was how Heero was moved into action. He knew no other way. But she had been livid, not gratified, and she had really thought Heero through with her. "Not really," she said. 

"Not really?" he repeated with scorn, and it rent her heart. 

"Damion, please!" she implored, and looked up, tears coming to her eyes as she saw the look of absolute betrayal on his face. "I wanted to get over Heero, yes, and maybe that was my inspiration for seeing other people in the first place, but I did genuinely like you. I do genuinely like you." 

He closed his eyes slowly and breathed as if she had given him some small tonic. "But not enough," he said, more to himself than her. "In the end, you chose him." 

"It's not because you were lacking," she said. "I just love him. I can't make that go away. And I don't want to." 

He nodded, elbows on his knees and head in his hands. "You love him. He loves you," he spoke bitterly. She wanted to comfort him, but knew that she could not without causing him further pain. They needed a clean break, as clean as it could be in this unhappy tangle. "I used to pray," he said slowly, his eyes sharp, "for love. I used to watch my parents in all their formality and pray to God to show me that love was real. And I used to dream of falling in love and building a home with a wife and children, full of joy and magic and hope." 

"You still will," Relena encouraged, tears in her eyes. "It's a beautiful dream, Damion. Don't let it die because of this!" 

He shook his head. "It's not just you," he said. "I am a prince and I have awakened from sleep and seen myself and my life for what it really is." 

"Damion," she pleaded, and tears fell unchecked down her face now. "Please don't say these things. You are so much more and your life can reflect that. I believe you can!" 

"What you believe doesn't matter anymore!" he shouted at her and she flinched. "Don't you get that? I have been cast aside to what blessings I was born with and that's all that's left! I almost lost _that_ yesterday because I was busy chasing after some obscure idea that is probably only wishful thinking. I have responsibilities and I must stick to them. I don't have the leisure to chase butterflies and believe in fairy tales anymore. What chance I had I lost." 

"Damion," she whispered. 

"I don't hold you responsible," he said finally and his eyes were clear as he looked at her. "And I don't hate you. I still think you are wonderful. I am just sorry for myself that I lost you and angry that I messed up what was between you and Heero when I had no business to be there in the first place. All that has befallen me is my own doing and the result of my own stubbornness. I just have to grow up." 

Relena bit her lip. "What do you want me to do?" she asked. 

"Nothing for me," he said. "But don't let this sacrifice be worth nothing. You've chosen Heero. At least be true to your own desires and follow through. I will wish you happiness, and when I have recovered from these trials I will send you word." 

"Please do," she said. Her heart felt wrenched with sorrow and a vague form of hopelessness, but she could think of nothing to do that would help. "Just promise me that you will reconsider these rash words. I could have loved you had I not given my heart to Heero first." 

He smiled at her. "Thank you," he said. "But I can't promise anything. Now go to him, or my pain will be worth nothing." 

She crossed the room and kissed him lightly on the cheek. "You have been beyond wonderful to me," she said, "and any girl who doesn't think you are worth loving is a fool who deserves her fate. I am sorry." 

"So am I," he said as she left the way she came. "Relena," he called, and she hesitated in the open door, turning. "That night on the hill, during the storm, he told me that he loved you. I didn't believe him then, but seeing what I saw yesterday and the days before, I do now. If anything soothes my heart, it is knowing that he at least deserves love, for I perceive that he has lived hard and dangerously, without compassion, so I wish his happiness as much as I do yours. Perhaps that understanding has been my gift at the conclusion of these things." 

Relena smiled sadly at him over her shoulder. "He thinks he is a weapon unworthy of love," she said. "And I thank you for your kindness and empathy, but there is no need to pity Heero Yuy. He has more strength in all his being than I have ever known, and I have patterned myself after him." 

"I have seen it, but your strength is your own," Damion told her quietly. 

"Maybe, but I owe him my inspiration to develop it." 

"One day I will have to hear the whole story," Damion said. "I keep getting it in bits and pieces, and I must say that it fascinates me. You both have many battles to fight, and together, you just might be unstoppable. Good-bye, Relena." 

"Good-bye, Damion," she replied, and slipped out of his study as she had entered it.   
  
  
  


***** 

  
  
  


Heero rubbed his face on the short, white sleeve of his dress shirt and went back to work on the Wing Zero. Taravren engineers had been working steadily through the night to fix his gundam, but he had chased them all away. He smiled up at Zero, feeling for the first time in a long time quite clear-headed and clean-hearted. He felt for all the world as he had right after the war, when peace had come to the universe and everyone he came to know had survived and he had begun his search for himself and his lost humanity. He was never really sure he had found it. Whenever he moved too far and too long away from Relena he would revert to the way he had always been, but he supposed that was who he really was, and there was no use denying it forever. He would leave for good soon enough and put all of this craziness behind him. 

He remembered little of the day before. He remembered his pain, his coldness, his all-consuming desire for Relena infecting him with some mad disease and his persistence to block out everything in order to block out her, but that had passed now. He wasn't sure what made it go away, but he was thankful and did not ask questions. He remembered being wounded and not caring, fighting anyway as he would have done without question years ago, but he didn't remember what happened after that. He had lost consciousness he supposed, and was taken to a hospital to recover. He awoke stitched up, fresh and more than ready to be gone. 

He remembered having a dream of an angel with Relena's face appearing to him in the Wing Zero when he was wounded. In that delicious dream she had soothed his hurts and kissed his hand and brought him out into the light. He had not wanted to wake up and remembered very clearly being lost in her eyes, eyes that shone with love for him and only him in such a way that all distractions outside the two of them vanished entirely. He had always tried to limit distractions affecting himself only, but in his dream he had somehow connected with her like they were one person and together floated in a void filled with their emotions for each other and inhibited by absolutely nothing else. It was the most exquisite and beautiful thought he had ever conceived, and too wonderful to be real. He remembered the angel-vision of Relena touching his face and he hers and being locked thus until the fires between them became too hot and he had to pull her hands away or be consumed. Then he remembered nothing else but a very different kind of fire and a frightening blackness that consumed everything for long afterward. He knew then that it was a dream, for it was soon followed by nightmares of many kinds, and those he did not want to remember, though the most powerful parts stuck with him anyway. There were the usual fears of being denied death forever and forced to kill over and over again until he lived on the blood of others like a vampire, but the worst visions were the ones where he destroyed Damion's home and person in his own rage and sickness and heard Relena telling him how much she hated him over and over and over. 

But when he awoke in the hospital, that sickness that had long infected him was gone. He laid the cause on the angel dream, the first pleasant dream he had had in some while. He figured it had somehow calmed his desire, taming his fury and self-loathing. He could think of Relena now without savage lust, or anything even remotely sinful. He thought of her with warmth and gladness, like a breath of wind to a shadowed valley, and spent time thinking of her on purpose even as he worked on his gundam. Instead of flaming him to recklessness, thoughts of her face, her smile, her laugh, her light figure and queenly grace calmed him. They made him feel human and he had missed that sorely. The thought surprised him. 

It used to be like that all the time. Since the war ended visions of her had made him feel at ease. For awhile he had not known what to do, knowing only that he could not really have her and so stayed by her only for her protection. He had dared once to kiss her, and regretted it when she did not kiss him back. He had thought she loved him when she begged him to let her care for him, but he supposed that was not the case. He had been too ashamed to talk about it, and knew that it had made her uncomfortable too. His feelings and reaction to her began to change around the time of Mariemaia, when the flames of rebellion and war spooked old demons and he began dwelling on past sorrows. Then her face became the only beacon of light in a red and hazy world and he had sought after her mindlessly without clear direction. Long had he had suppressed sexual feelings for her, but they got out of control the more he stayed just on the skirts of her existence and lied to himself about how much he loved her. He could admit that he did now, to himself anyway, in the quiet regions of his mind where no one could see, but that revelation had only come with full knowledge after he stabbed Damion and comprehended how sick he had really become. Then he tried to wash it away in coldness, freezing his heart to block out the heat effect her eyes had on him, but that only made him ruthless and he hated himself more, even unto death. 

He was grateful to the dream that had revived him, and prayed to God as he had never done before in thanks for that faerie angel that had brought him out of despair. He knew that in reality Relena still hated him for how he had been, and rightly so, and though she may marry Damion one day and be Queen of Taravren, he hoped to reconcile his debts to her and renew their friendship. That would be blessing enough now. And he had heard that God was graceful. 

"Heero. I thought I might find you here." 

Heero almost bumped his head on the Wing Zero at the sound of Relena's voice, almost. He turned to look at her with sharp eyes, his breathing suddenly strangled, his heart racing. She stunned him like the light of the sun at noon day, and would even if she were dressed in rags, but in this dress, with her hair soft and loose about her shoulders, she nearly filled up the room,   
.though nothing in his expression would show it. He leaped down from the ladder. "Relena," he said, deftly avoiding a chair the engineers had brought in, trying to keep the love out of his voice and eyes. He couldn't be a burden to her anymore, though he loved her still and would always. "Why are you here?" 

"To see you," she said. "I went to the hospital this morning, but you were gone." 

He looked everywhere in the room but at her face. He didn't think he could bring himself to meet her eyes, so he surveyed the area as if for enemies, coldly and without expression, though his heart burned. With the thought, a wave of heat and passion overwhelmed his head and he swallowed, feeling suddenly hot and uncomfortable. He had thought he kicked this thing, but as she came close it came back in full force. His eyes skipped over her face and traveled to her jaw line and her neck and shoulders. The dress she wore looked like it would come off those parts of her body fairly easily... he swallowed, his face flushing, and his eyes drifted around the room, avoiding her. 

"I felt better so I left," he said, and knew he sounded cold. It was self-defense, throwing up those old barriers, but in a terrifying manner, she seemed to see right through them. "You shouldn't be here," he told her bluntly. She was too close. He managed to look into her eyes, and saw himself reflected there, but he could not see what she was thinking or feeling. He knew she probably hated him, and came only to tell him good-bye. "Do you have something to say?" 

She looked at him for a moment, her eyes seeming to scan every inch of his face. "Heero," she said. "I don't think you are a sword without a heart." 

Suddenly he realized she was now standing very close to him, so close he could see the breath from her mouth and the artistry of her eyes. He stared down at her and tried not to think of taking that mouth in his and breathing in life from her directly. He closed his eyes. "I know," he said a little shakily, unsure what she had even said anymore, but knowing his answer was true. "Do you have to stand so close?" 

"Why don't you want me to stand close, Heero?" she asked quietly with real urgency, and he felt her hand touch his shoulder and her fingers reach for his neck. Her voice trembled. "Why don't you ever allow me to be near you?" Fire leapt from where her fingertips touched his skin, scorching him. 

"Relena!" he cried breathlessly and tried to move back, but he hit the chair and fell into it. Relena fell into his lap. His eyes flew open to see her face before his, staring at him, felt her weight on his legs. Her hands were on his face like in his dream, caressing his skin. "Relena, don't touch my face," he pleaded. He realized he had his hands on her waist and that she was trembling even as he was. 

"Why not?" she asked, and her voice quaked. 

"It's too personal," he said hoarsely, and then begged. "Please." His own hands came up to hers to take them away but he found he did not have the strength to pull them down. Her hands felt beautiful under her fingers, so soft and smooth, and he stroked them unconsciously, still unable to look away from her. Tears unbidden welled up in his eyes, and as they did, they welled up also in hers. "Relena, don't torture me," he cried in dark tones. "Not when I know how much you must still hate me." 

Her hands began to move on his face as she peered at him, wiping away the sudden and violent tears on his cheeks as he sobbed for her to release him and be gone. "I don't hate you, I don't hate you," she said over and over, and she was crying. Suddenly, he felt her lips on his forehead, and then on his cheeks, kissing away the tears that trickled from his eyes. He hadn't cried since that one fateful night, and never in his recollection before then. He struggled, breathing in the scent of her hair, her skin, the dab of perfume on her neck. It was driving him crazy. 

"You don't?" he said softly, her words breaking through the fog in his head slowly. 

"No," she said, leaning back, her hands still on his face. She looked him right in the eyes. "I am afraid, Heero," she said seriously. "I am afraid that whatever happens here now, when it is done you will leave and I will never see you again." 

"Relena," he began. 

"I don't hate you," she said, tears in her eyes, her voice shaking. "And I never could, because I love you, Heero Yuy. That night when I said that, you hurt me deeply, because you did wrong and I love you." 

He froze, his mind reeling, his hands tightening around her waist. She was staring into his eyes in silence now, reading them, and he knew every thought in his head must be laid open for her there, and he didn't care. "Say it again," he breathed in disbelief. 

"I love you." 

He closed his eyes, shudders passing through him, and pulled her to him tightly, arms wrapped around her back, fingers tangled in her hair, making sure that she was really there. "I love you, I love you, I love you," she whispered frantically in his ears. 

"But Damion..." Heero breathed in protest, and made to release her. 

"No," she said, and wrapped her arms around his neck to keep him close. "Don't think that way. This is between you and me. I broke up with Damion. He knows, Heero. He saw, yesterday, when I tended you. Everybody saw." 

"My dream," he said, his head swimming, flying. It was real. She had come to him and that love he had seen in her eyes, that moment they had shared... He pulled her back and sought her face with his in wild inspiration, kissing her as forcefully as he knew how, mouth to mouth, his hands roaming over her face, fingers threading through her hair as he tried desperately to drink her spirit. Her lips were warm and full, her breath hot and in his throat. She kissed him back with equal force, rising in his lap until she hovered over him and he felt the power of her kiss in his toes. He could taste her on his tongue, feel her hands in his hair and on his face, his mouth moving against hers repeatedly as they fought to consume the other at the same time. 

He broke off for air and went for her neck, breathing heavily. "I love you," he said ruggedly into her throat, and kissed her neck as he had always wanted. He pulled back the sleeves of her dress and caressed her shoulders before kissing them, rubbing his cheek against their soft smoothness in wonder. 

He meant to go no further, being satisfied that she was alive and real and his, but looking again into her eyes, he saw to his amazement that they were closed in bliss as she breathed, her head lying against his shoulder, her mouth curved in a smile. He stared at her face, lost in her beauty until she blinked herself to full consciousness and stared at him with eyes that shimmered blue-green like a lagoon. "Why did you stop?" she asked, and he could see the desire for him to continue plain in her eyes. It surprised and thrilled him. 

"I don't know," he said, swallowing, "but I think it for the best. For now. Let's not ruin it." 

She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned her head on his chest, snuggling up against him contentedly. "I love you, Heero Yuy," she whispered. "You will come back to Cinq with me?" 

He nodded, kissing her hair. 

"And will you stay?" she asked. "And always be where I can find you, and never be afraid to love me?" 

"I'll stay forever," he said, "I do love you." 

Her arms tightened around his neck, and the lines on her face seemed to smooth into a contented peace. He had never seen her so peaceful. "I will love you always," she murmured quietly, "and if ever you need to leave, allow me to follow and I will. Just don't lie or leave me anymore." 

He pulled her tightly to him in silence, and wondered as she fell asleep in his lap, arms still draped over his shoulders. He began to lift and carry her to her bed, but stopped, remembering what she had said about being afraid that he would leave her when this was through. So instead he sat back and brushed her hair from her face and studied her expression for nearly an hour. At length sleep caught up with him and he rested his head back, his left hand holding her right, and slept as she slept, even as Wing Zero watched them both from above.   
  
  


Review please!   
  



	14. Chapter 14

This is **lemony**, though no _actual_ lemons. More lime. Because of the time-junctioning, I get out of tense for the sake of poetry. Deal with it. And no, I don't claim any ownership to Gundam Wing. 

* * *

  
  
  


Heart of the Sword 

Afterward 

By Zapenstap 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Heero stole across the plaza of the seaside mansion in deathly quiet, skulking through the shadows and avoiding the rays of moonlight that poured silver rivers across the lawn. All was quiet, but he had to be sure, absolutely sure, that he compromised all sources of danger here. It had to be as clean as an open meadow, as safe as a mountaintop in perfect isolation, or he would never forgive himself. 

He had found only one guard, a night watchman, and capturing him and locking him up had been only a small difficulty. There seemed to be nothing else. It did not surprise him. The resident of this house was not one easily given to fear. 

Creeping to the door, he found it locked and guarded with a passcode security monitor. Retrieving a small device from his coat pocket, he held it up to the side of the security system and watched the digitalized combination that opened the door appear before his eyes. He took the device away, entered the code, and watched the door swing open with a soft click. He looked behind him and smiled as he entered, propping the door open with a small stone on the doorstep. 

The inside of the house was empty, dark and devoid of all sound. He carefully searched each room on the lower levels and then climbed the spiral staircase to the second floor. Again he checked all the rooms, glad to find them empty, and approached the master bedroom with less caution. 

He had been a week back in the Cinq Kingdom with Relena. He had allowed Trowa to fly the Wing Zero back to Cinq when the other pilots decided to return while he flew back with Relena by plane. It should have bothered him, but Zero was the prototype for all the gundams, and each of the pilots had piloted it at least once, and he trusted Trowa. Besides, he had wanted to fly back with Relena and taking care of Wing Zero seemed less important now than taking care of her. She had awoken in his arms stiff and sore at first, but so gratified to see him still there that they did not leave the room for several minutes. That was all it took. There had been more of it during the flight. 

Damion had found him shortly before boarding the plane while Relena called home to inform everyone of her return. Heero had stiffened at the meeting, but Damion, arrayed in all his formal attire, had said nothing about the past, nor much about Relena, other than that he was glad to see her with him, which Heero did not understand. They communicated mostly in silence, each with eyes sharp as glass fragments, but Heero felt no competition in it. He was almost sorry to go, and realized with a shock that he actually liked Damion Ravineere. . 

"Take care of her," Damion had said softly. "She deserves that." His gaze then became suddenly intense. "There were rumors about the details of my relationship with Relena before we came here," he said. "I want you to know that they're not true." 

Heero had never been more relieved to hear anything in his life. He was never really sure if he had believed those rumors, but to hear Damion deny it was a load off his shoulders he hadn't known he was carrying. She really could be totally his, if she wanted it, but the chance was there. "You really are a good person," Heero told him quietly. "I'm... sorry for the way things have been." 

"That's a compliment and an apology," Damion replied gravely, but he smiled. "I doubt you give out either often. I thank you, and I appreciate it." Damion then offered him his hand, and Heero took it hesitantly, but Damion's grip was strong. "I mean it," he said, speaking close to his ear. "Take care of her. She's waited a long time." And then Damion explained to him in low tones something he had learned yesterday about Clara's networking over the past few weeks that made Heero's blood boil. 

Heero kicked the door open to the Master bedroom and found himself face to face with a blonde girl in bed wearing black lingerie, her hair wild about her face. She made as if to reach under a pillow for the gun Heero was fairly certain she kept there, but catching a glimpse of him in the light from her window, she stayed her hand and leaned back easily. One of her legs, pale and smooth as ivory, came out from under the covers, bare to the thigh, and the covers around her front slipped to her waist. 

"Heero," Dorothy Catalonia purred, her eyes like shards of blue crystal, and just as bitingly sharp. "Whatever are you doing in my room at this hour?" 

"I came to see you," he said darkly, and pulled a gun on her. 

Her eyebrows rose in question, but she was neither afraid nor surprised. Her voice had the consistency of oil. "So is that the way of it? I heard you went to Taravren to be Damion's bodyguard. How did that turn out?" 

"I kept him alive," Heero replied. "I hear you knew a great deal about it." 

She shrugged and replaced one of the straps that had slipped down her shoulder. "Clara always was a love-sick little thing. Pathetic, really. I wanted to see the look on her face when Damion chose Relena and squashed all of her dreams. You know that all she wanted when we were children was to marry him and live happily ever after?" 

"And all you wanted was a fair amount of estates in Taravren when she was made queen." 

Dorothy sighed and stretched her arms. "Yes, well, that obviously didn't work out, did it? She was supposed to demand marriage or murder, but she chickened out." 

"She's dead," Heero said flatly. "She took a bullet for Damion and died in his arms." 

Dorothy's eyes flickered momentarily. "I'm sorry to hear that," she said. "Was it one of yours?" She eyed the gun thoughtfully. 

"No." 

Dorothy's lips twitched in a smile. "Well, I guess all that means is that Relena is now free to marry Damion. You don't suppose _she_ would give me estates if I asked for them, would you?" She laughed wickedly and rose from her bed. Heero grimaced. It was all in her plan. She smiled at him. "You know," she murmured, "there was one other thing I wanted." 

"And what was that?" he asked in his darkest voice and deepest glare. 

She seemed unaffected, approaching him slowly, the light from the window casting odd shadows on her body. "You," she said softly, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "You see, if Clara failed, Damion would have Relena and I would have you. I could get estates from either of them. If Clara succeeded, I would be given them outright. As for you," she laughed. "Well, would you really want Relena knowing she was a whore cast aside by a prince of a two-bit kingdom? It was a beautiful plan. And don't you think we're perfect for each other?" she added in tones of sweet carress. Her voice was pure music when she tried, but Heero was unaffected. Images flashed through his mind as he looked at her body, but the images were not of Dorothy. 

"I'm not sorry to dissapoint you," he said. "That will never happen." He lowered his gun--it wasn't loaded anyway--and lightly pushed the door behind him, holding it open. 

Dorothy stopped dead in her tracks, eyes widening in shock as Relena stepped through into the room, a tape recorder in her hands. Heero watched her and did not bother to guard his expression from revealing any of his his emotions as his eyes drank in her face, her hair, her body. The very way she moved, glided really, in a long white dress, reminded him of a swan, and in the darkness, he wanted nothing more than to touch her. But he stood in the shadows as she stepped into the moonlight, her eyes meeting Dorothy's in utter calm. 

"Miss Relena," Dorothy babbled. "I heard you were back, but I..." 

"You thought I would go back to Taravren soon?" Relena finished for her calmly. "Why would I do that, when Heero loves me?" 

Dorothy's eyes swung to Heero and she hissed. "But Miss Relena..." 

"Damion and I broke up, Dororthy," Relena said. "Because Heero loves me. Everyone's talking about it. Haven't you heard?" 

"I...I don't listen to rumors, Miss Relena," she stammered. 

"No," Relena said sadly. "You just spread them." 

Dorothy's eyes darted. 

"They can be traced," Relena added, and paused, fingering the tape recorder, waiting for it to sink in and stretching the silence. When she spoke again, that white angel had a voice frozen like deep winter, and every word was a nail driven through stone. "I want you out of Cinq by dusk tomorrow, Dorothy," she said. "And of Taravren also you are exiled, unless you want to face changes of conspiracy to terrorism. Here you will be sued for Slander if you remain, and I will strip from you every cent you own. You will have to rely on others to support you. If you go, you can fare as well as you might. Your reputation, unfortunately, can not be saved. There have been many inquiries since my return, and you know full well that I am honest." 

Dorothy swallowed and she looked to Heero, almost asking for help. "We are not alike," Heero said coldly. 

"Truth melts deception, always," Relena said, smiling at him with her heart in her eyes. Dorothy noticed, and blanched. "This should keep you out of trouble," Relena added, turning back to her. "If I see you again, I will not hesitate to denounce you in public." 

Relena swept out of the room and Heero followed without looking back, shutting the door quietly behind him. Once they were back out in the lawn and the moon made Relena's skin seem to shine with a pale flame, he couldn't help himself, but picked her up in a hug, burying his face in her neck as he swung her lightly around while she laughed. 

And he remembered the joy of the last few days like it was the present, reliving it in his mind. 

They had been in Cinq a few weeks while Relena frantically tried to catch up on her work, fretting constantly about what to do about Dorothy. They had talked about it, and about everything else she had planned for Cinq and for the universe. She had had a lot of work to do for the days she had missed, and many meetings, but Heero found her before or after every conference, and soon they learned every hidden corner and closet between every council room. For minutes only they had those days, and the fire that ignited between them was better than anything he had ever known. And it was enough. He was willing to wait forever, as long as he could stay by her, though it drove him crazy. And her reputation was important too, or maybe it wouldn't have mattered so much, especially with the rumors Dorothy had started, though those were slowly dying. But that wasn't the point. He wanted something real with her, something that would last, forever maybe. 

He had walked her to her private home at dusk last night, reluctant to let her go, and she paused at her door, aglow in the light of the stars and the streetlamps, clothed in a blue spring dress and sandles that showed the gentle curves of her calves and her arms bare from shoulders to fingertips. He remembered holding her just moments ago, and looking at her wanted to touch her again, every inch of her. And she had looked at him and fidgeted, stalling. 

"Heero," she said, the light casting odd shadows on her face. "I love you." He moved in to kiss her and she let him grab her, but she pulled her face away, hands rested lightly on his arms. "Stay the night with me," she said breathlessly. 

It had almost killed him, hearing her say that. "Relena," he breathed huskily, trying to block out the images that danced through his head whenever she was near. "Don't. You know you can't." 

"I don't care," she said, her hands clutching his shirt sleeves as she stared into his eyes. 

"It's only been a few weeks." 

"It's been three and half years," she returned with such heartache he could hear it in her voice as well as see it in her eyes. 

"No," he said evenly, but he couldn't stop the images. He still wondered at the love in her eyes, and every time she touched him, however innocently, was always a shock. No one had ever wanted to touch him before. She didn't know the damage she could do with what she was suggesting, and how much he wanted it, even though he was afraid. And that was the truth. He was afraid. She still seemed only half-real to him, and he didn't want to ruin it, or hurt her, or do anything to jeopardize this dream. And it wasn't just about him. "You can't damage your reputation." He would threaten anyone who didn't respect her, and he wanted her to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he loved her beyond conception, they he respected her for everything that she was. She had the courage of a lion, the kindness of an angel, the strength of the ocean, and she _loved_ him. It was too good to be true, and he couldn't say or do enough to convince her of like sentiment. But maybe she just wanted him to express it. Fully. He was bad with words; he didn't like to talk, but he could show her. He could show her. He felt hot. 

"No one has to know," she said, searching his face. 

He smiled at her, into her eyes. "They'll _know_. They'll guess. They'll find out." 

She looked down. "I know," she said, and looked back up again. "Do you want to stay the night?" she repeated it as if there had been no interlude, nothing said between now and her first request. 

He froze, breathing in the night. His tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. She was serious, really serious. The kisses weren't enough to prove it to her, or to him. She wanted to know him, and he couldn't stop desiring her. It was healthy. He loved her. "Yes," he said hoarsely, and felt the fire building between them until it was a roaring furnace. He flung all hesitation out the door. He could show her he loved her. 

She smiled, biting her lip, and took his hands, leading him inside. He could hardly keep his hands off her once they were through the door and kissed her everywhere she would let him as they made their way upstairs in the dark. It slowed them down, but her skin felt hot to his lips and he couldn't stop. 

She laughed when they stumbled through the doorway into her room, and she didn't stop laughing when he began removing her clothes in a frenzied fashion, but when he paused long enough to capture the light of her eyes, they twinkled with happy acceptance and an eagerness that surprised him. She stroked his face with one hand and smiled up at him through her lashes as he leaned over her. There was joy in this. He could see it in her eyes. She began plucking at the buttons of his shirt. 

"Aren't you scared?" he asked quietly. He was scared. It wasn't fair if she was not when she was the one who was supposed to be. 

She undid the last button and smiled up at him. "Yeah," she said, but she didn't sound afraid. "Some. But it's not as scary as you're destroying me, now is it?" And the look she gave him was wicked mischievious. 

He forgot all about that when she began touching his chest with her fingers, sliding her hands up his chest and removing his shirt over his shoulders with a kind of happy wonder in her eyes. He swallowed, shivering under her touch and annoyed that she could move him this way, but solved the problem by tackling her onto the bed. He'd be damned if he was the first one undressed. She squealed in surprise, laughed, and she didn't stop laughing until he got serious with her. Her skin was the softest, smoothest thing he had ever felt. 

There was only point when he spoke again, softly, to ease her, but she had only nodded and clenched her eyes shut. After that they didn't speak at all, save what escaped their lips, and that only served to make them shut up and work harder for more such sounds, until the sweat slicking their bodies was the only thing cooling them. He didn't really know what he was doing, and she didn't either, but by her cries, he figured he must have done it well enough. Besides, as she laid across his chest afterward with her head on his shoulder she told him so, and he believed her. He would have believed her if she said the sky was falling. He would have believed anything, done anything for her, but all he did was return the compliment, hold her arm, stroke her back and fall asleep. It seemed to be enough, because when he awoke, she was still there, gazing at him with a smile on her face, propped up on one arm. She had come up with a solution for Dorothy. And then she said that she was sore, and _he_ laughed. 

Now she laughed again, even as she had last night, arms around his neck as he set her back on her feet. He kissed her deeply there on the streets late at night, and all thoughts of Dorothy or anything else vanished from his thoughts. But other thoughts replaced them and he broke their kiss, suddenly wanting to get back to her house as soon as possible. Every glimpse of her skin made him think of other patches that were hiding and he wanted to see them again. He could love her forever and never be satisfied. She caught it in his eyes, growing quiet, and he knew she would try anyway.   
  
  
  


***** 

One month later 

***** 

Relena stopped by Terese's desk and picked up a pamphlet of papers and various mail left for her by her secretary. Terese was on the phone in the other room, probably with Manny again. Relena smiled as she leafed through her mail, but she didn't get all the way through it before Tersese popped out of the room and grabbed her arm with a grin. 

"What's going on?" Relena asked in mild amazement. 

"Your brother's back with Miss Noin," Terese said, still smiling widely. "They've arrived a day early." 

Relena tossed her mail back on Terese's desk and grabbed a sweater-coat from the coat rack, throwing it over her shoulders as she ran behind Terese to the front of the castle. 

Zechs stepped out of a limo and helped Noin out behind him, both in Preventor jackets, coming straight from the spaceport. 

"Milliardo! Noin!" Relena cried, hugging both of them. 

"Relena," Noin said in welcome. Zechs inspected her over Noin's shoulder and smiled. 

"You must be tired," Relena said. "Can I offer you anything?" 

"Just news," Zechs replied as they went inside. "We've been out of touch for some time. I hear you've been quite busy." 

"Yeah," Noin echoed. "What's this whole thing with a Taravren Rebellion? You dated Prince Ravineere?" 

Relena smiled. "For a little while," she said. 

"I thought for sure you were going to hook up with Heero," Noin half-joked. Zechs said nothing, catching his sister's sudden look. 

"I have," Relena said, stopping. They both turned and stared at her. 

"Relena," Zechs cautioned. 

"How?" Noin interrupted. "It wouldn't seem..." 

"It's a long story," she said diplomatically. "Don't worry about it," she added with a smile. "I'm old enough now to make my own decisions. I know it may seem strange to you, but I've never been happier." 

Zechs frowned at her, searching her face, but he said nothing in the end. He wouldn't approve no matter her choice, though she knew he respected Heero. None of that would matter when he found out, and he would find out, but she didn't care. It really didn't matter what he thought. She loved Heero, and he her, and nothing could stop her from expressing that now. 

Zechs and Noin retired without much more talking, exhausted from their travels. Relena went back to Terese's desk and found her secretary grinning over a letter ripped from an envelope addressed to her personally. It had Taravren as a return address. Terese caught sight of her coming and flushed to her hairline. "I think you have one too," she said, barely containing some sort of glee. 

Relena blinked, and then noticed that the envelope to Terese's letter was sealed with a royal emblem. She stared in confusion before picking up the pile she had discarded earlier. She flipped through the stack of bills and invites until she found it, a thick envelope addressed to Relena Darilan from Damion Ravineere, Prince of Taravren. 

"Thanks, Terese," she said, absorbed in staring at the letter. "I'm going to go home for a little bit." 

She opened the envelope as she walked back to her house, hoping Heero was still in bed. Sometimes he got up early and sometimes he slept in, depending whether or not the Preventors requested his presence and what they had done the night before. She grinned as she withdrew the letter and unfolded it. She stopped in the street just outside her door to read.   


_Relena Darilan and Heero Yuy,_

_Excuse me for excluding Heero's name on the envelope. I didn't want to confuse the address and I wanted you to read this first. I am afraid I have a lot to say and no real plan as to how to go about it. I think it most important that you know that my wish for your happiness with Heero still stands, though I do regret losing you in a nostalgic, wistful sort of way. Even with that I think I am getting over you. Don't get too depressed, my dear; remember, you started it. I would also like to confess that I have made a terrible mistake, or rather an oversight, and I hope you will forgive me. If I had known the error I was making--and I feel a fool for making it--I would have made you that promise you wanted so desperately ere you departed from my home. But how was I to know? It might ease your mind now to hear that I have indeed had a change of heart. I had lost my faith in God and love and happiness in life, but I have reclaimed all three. I believe in love again, or rather, I am sure it is real. Don't grow too excited; I have not met someone elese. The cure to my tangled ideology was mere contemplation, and so obvious I had to have been blind to ever doubt. I told you I used to pray to God to show me true love existed and had grown bitter when it was denied me, but my lamentations were without warrent. I have been shown love; I was just too blind and self-involved to notice. It took a little time to realize it with my thoughts so full of my loss of you, the tragedy of Clara and the truth of my parent's marriage, but if love was the sight I asked for, there is no more beautiful picture than what took place beneath the Wing Zero that fateful day. So I confess that I am not only a fool, but a selfish and impatient one. I saw love and grew bitter because it was not mine, and that is a very childish reaction. Thus I have since sworn faith and patience. It would seem that God works in mysterious ways, for if I had never interfered, that scene that now inspired me may never have taken place, and that would have been a real loss for everybody. It was never certain afterall that you and I would work together. My parents seemed to think it wouldn't and maybe they were right, but whatever their thoughts, I have reconciled with them, and my mother is much relieved. I am certain you are too. Their love is real, by the way. I see that now, though it would it was not always so. Either way, it gives me hope, and I will wait patiently for the girl that will bring me the kind of happiness that I'm sure you bring to Heero. Which reminds me: Tell him when you see him (as I'm sure you frequently do) that he had better keep his word, and also that he should know better than to believe he can control everything. Obviously, none of us have been very good at that, despite our professed powers. At any rate, I believe that there was a design that you and he be together, and rather than entangling that design, I think I played a part in it. If that seems silly to you, please just humor me. It will soothe my feelings. You and Heero are certainly welcome any time in Taravren, as well as all your friends and relations. It would be a blessing to have such brave and honest friends stop through from time to time, especially Vice Foreign Ministers and Gundam Pilots._

_All my best wishes and love,_

_Damion Ravineere_

_PS: I have taken the liberty of offering your charming secretary a better salary and a new job here in Taravren, plane tickets and living establishments included. I hope this doesn't infuriate you too much, but as I believe we have spoken of before, I have lots of money and few honest friends. Besides, Manny put me up to it and you should know that I can't refuse._   


Relena bit her lip with a smile as she folded up the letter and clutched it in her hands. Racing to her door, she flung it open and hurried inside and up the stairs to her bedroom. 

"Heero!" she called. "I've a letter for you! You must read it!" 

She heard him moving about in her room and, opening the door, walked across the floor and crawled up on the bed beside him. Only half dressed, he caught hold of her and took the letter from her hand. She stretched out on his left side and laid her head on his shoulder, watching him read, her fingers playing absently with his hair. 

Heero lowered the letter and smiled at her. "Do you think Terese will go?" he asked her. 

"I think she's already packed," Relena replied. "What do you think of the rest?" 

He nodded, the kindness on his face capturing his heart. "It's good," he said. "I'm glad." 

She sighed and laid her head on his bare chest, tracing patterns on his stomach with her fingers. "If we were meant to be, why did it take us so long?" 

"Why didn't you kiss me back... that one day?" he asked quietly. 

She started, looking up at his face. "Heero," she breathed, love for him sprouting anew. That _did_ mean something. "You surprised me. I'd never been kissed before. And it was _you_." 

"I was your first kiss?" he said in wonder. 

"You're my first everything," she told him in a murmur, and closed her eyes so she could listen to his heart beat. "By the way," she added. "My brother's back." 

Heero swore and then laughed. "Am I going to have to fight _him_ for you too?"   
  
  
  


~The End~   
  


Sequel: Temper the Soul 

  



End file.
